


Til The Night is Over

by irolltwenties (Shenanigans)



Series: Til the Night [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Complete, F/F, F/M, I started thinking about the finale and I snapped I guess, M/M, Malex, Maribel, Minor Character Death, Season 2 fix it fic, all the things, and handwaved first times that are underage per canon, basically what I want to happen in season 2., gratuitous use of psychic powers, i still don't know how to tag things, lots of dead jokes, there's some graphic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-02-07 07:39:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 110,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18616132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/irolltwenties
Summary: Liz could pinpoint the moment her brain physically shut down her panic, packed it away into a tight little box and started parsing out the possibilities. Max was still warm under her hands, she could stillfeelhim just under her skin, like a whisper, like a secret. The cave was cold, air crisp and dry with the smell of metal and dust.Rosa was alive. Rosa wasaliveand Max Evans was dead under her fingertips. If Rosa was alive then Max could be alive again.Ipso facto.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hover over Spanish for translation.

Liz could pinpoint the moment her brain physically shut down her panic, packed it away into a tight little box and started parsing out the possibilities. Max was still warm under her hands, she could still _feel_ him just under her skin, like a whisper, like a secret. The cave was cold, air crisp and dry with the smell of metal and dust. 

Rosa was alive. Rosa was _alive_ and Max Evans was dead under her fingertips. If Rosa was alive then Max could be alive again.

_Ipso facto_.

She was shaking, heart stuck on a beat too fast to maintain as she turned, one hand still on Max. She wouldn’t say his body, that meant he left. He would never leave her. Some things were just true no matter how many times you tested the theory.

This cave was smaller than the chamber off the passage in the turquoise mines. It felt like little more than a scraped open sinkhole. She’d nearly cracked her head open running, roots of the sage brush pushing crooked fingers into the ground, spindly and dark. She had a moment to catalogue what was around her. It was always best to list the tools necessary and collect them before an experiment. There were books stacked in piles of two or three under old candles that had melted down and been replaced over and over. It looked like a shrine with Rosa’s rose set in different places of honor. There was the pod, a strange sickly yellow amber color- not vibrant and alive like the three she was used to. To her left was a camp stove- set to smelting and she’d done this. She knew how to do this.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said under her breath, voice cracked down the middle as she fisted her hands into Max’s shirt one more time and scrambled to the set up. It was delicate work. “In a fucking cave. Are we serious right now, Max?” She squared her jaw, lighting the burners. The solution was delicate and if it cooled too much it hit activation site and the solute would precipitate. Which, technically, she thought to herself as she started methodically unsnapping the buttons on Max’s shirt, was exactly what she wanted. "¿Por qué pesas tanto?”

The solution needed to cool minutely on his skin, settling the precipitate of silver in a fine layer so that it could breach the barrier on the pod. She’d think about what to do next later- right now she just kept undressing him. 

That was her lipstick. That was her kiss on his skin and she had to push both hands flat on his skin to stop her hands from the violent shake that shuddered through her. "Ahora no, céntrate." She moved to his belt buckle, the clatter loud and close,echoing off the curved edges of the cave and back to her. She could hear the solution starting to boil. “You stay put. You stay right here, don’t you dare go anywhere.” Talking was keeping her breathing under control as she shimmied down his body, catching his heel and pulling to tug off his boots. She tossed the left one somewhere to her right, hearing a clatter of something and not caring. She had to be faster. She had to be better. She had to raise the damn dead and of course Max Evans had to be wearing cowboy boots that she was struggling with, twisting and pulling and watching his hair muss in the dirt as his head lolled to the side, eyes still half open.

“Liz?” It was Rosa, still so oddly quiet and Liz closed her eyes at the way her heart just twisted right up and tried to crawl up her throat to flop angrily on the floor. 

“Help me get his boots off.” She had a very tight box around what was happening in her world. There were specific instructions she had to follow. She had a theory, she had an experiment, she had the tools. A successful theory is proved by multiple experiments ending with the same results. She turned her head and saw Rosa’s eyes widen. She must look wrecked, hair wild and tear tracks under swollen eyes. She was tugging frantically at Max’s boot, moving the weight of him in little tugs until the boot gave and she gave. 

Rosa swallowed and moved to hold Max’s thigh, the boot finally letting go and she almost tumbled back. “Espero que sepas lo que estás haciendo.”

“I do.” Liz wasn’t lying, there were no lies in theory, just unproven concepts.

**  
Isobel was thinking about painting the kitchen some ridiculous shade of blue that might match painters tape. She was laying on her back, the shattered picture still glittering on the terrazzo. Everything in her life was beige or taupe. She had the perfect Martha Stewart Eggshell on the walls, the bits of woodwork a softer masculine note among the curated Pinterest board that was her life. She frowned, but maybe it was a pout. She didn’t like that Maria had been right. She’d been living in the perfect shell of a lie and now she was seriously considering putting away the second half of the bottle of Pinot Grigio and maybe the third bottle of Acetate. 

She hated how bland she’d become. She hated how taupe and timid her living room felt. “Maybe pink?” She arched a brow, shaking her head even as she said it and tossed the blue cap of the nail polish remover over her shoulder as she sat up, swigging from it with all the bored insouciance she’d watched Michael manage. 

It burned before the cool spread numb fingers down her throat and through her chest. “Possibly purple?” She glared at the couch, green velvet and so beautiful. She stroked a hand over the arm trying not to think of the nights she’d spent with her head in Noah’s lap, eyes closed and content as he stroked her hair and suffered through another rewatch of the Notebook. “They’re going to get hit by a car, babe.”

“No, they aren’t and you know this,” she’d reply, turning her eyes up to grin at him. He looked so warm, jawline sharp like she could cut her palms on it, the long line of his nose, plush mouth too soft for his face. She loved the way it would drop open on her name.

“I’m going to fucking burn you,” she told the couch, glaring so hard she felt the way her mind stuttered and sent it skittering back two inches. 

The living room was open concept, ceiling soaring up to the railing that tucked the second floor to the west side of the house. She loved how open and airy it felt and now, determined to be drunk and alone, it felt cavernous. She wet her lips and focused on the soft sage green vase, willing it to shatter. It wobbled violently before settling back with a clatter even as her stomach turned once. She had to close her eyes at the way her body simply told her *no*. Instead she let her knees go watery and sat back down, swallowing around the way her mouth watered. She had a second to be grateful that she hadn’t set fire to the couch when Max’s scream scraped across her mind, burning and shattering- something so wild and primal her whole body seized, eyes rolling back in pain at the electric raw scrape of him before it snuffed out.

Cold and quiet like a bucket of water after being set on fire. Her mind gone quiet and blank between the space in seconds. 

Isobel Evans lived in a beige house with notes of masculine wood and soft green accents. She puked in the vase. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes watering as she shook. The shattered glass crunched under her feet as she forced herself up. 

“Max.”  
**

Maria had turned on the neon behind the bar racks and wiped down the wood, but the chairs were still up and the drawers were only half counted. She needed to take inventory and make sure she’d pulled the right amount of the cheap vodka, the case of tequila already tucked under the well. The back door was propped open, letting a cool breeze creep through the back hallway, carrying the vague lingering smell of moldering cardboard and stale wine. Dumpster pick up was on Thursday so she’d had to take the big piece of plywood out to flop over the mess of trashbags, bottles, and liquor boxes. Climbing into the dumpster to bounce on plywood to act as a cheap trash compactor was one of those things that she’d never really considered odd until someone told her it was. She and her mother had done the Dumpster Bounce since she was a little girl.

That’s how she’d found the body. 

She could still feel the way the board had cracked strangely, different from every other time she’d done the Dumpster Bounce. There was a sick sound, like someone had wrapped a branch with wet towels and meat. She’d frozen, an animal instinct crawling dread fingers up her spine, that first pump of adrenaline locking her muscles in place as she kept her eyes ahead, out over the pothole pitted parking lot half turned to gravel in it’s disrepair. If she could just keep looking at the horizon, just keep her eyes focused on the distant stretch of plain just past the rural highway she wouldn’t have to look down. She _knew_ that if she looked down she’d scream.

The breeze blew and it shifted her hair, carrying that same overripe wet cardboard smell and something darker, something that smelled burnt and crisp like day old bacon. It’s like everything folded inside out and she looked down, scream tearing out of her like a startled shriek at the sight of a palm, fingers curled loosely against the shiny black of the trashbags. She slipped, falling and smacking her head against the edge of the dumpster, uncaring even as she scrambled back and away. There was a strange noise mewling through the air and it took her a moment to realize it was her, panting scared sounds into the morning. 

She was alone and that fact sank into her like ink into water, staining and spreading until she was pushing to her feet and reaching shaking hands to pull the plywood out of the dumpster. She knew there was a body there. She _knew_ it, could see the fingers gone blue around the nails and so pale, but she still screamed again when the trash bags shifted and Racist Hank’s milky blue eyes stared out at her.

Maria DeLuca screamed until her voice cracked hard, a long straight note of fear that faded into little panted breaths as she turned heel and ran. She tore back into her bar, nearly bouncing off the crash bar on the door and into the hallway where the bathrooms and the liquor room huddled tight together. The liquor order wasn’t due in for another three hours and she turned a tight circle, surrounded by her _home_ and terrified in a way that rose like water in her mouth.

The chairs were stacked on the table and the mop bucket was still in front of the jukebox, the handle of the mop a straight line pointing towards the dartboards. The neon lights were on and she still had to count the drawers, take a quick inventory to get the liquor order in, and there was a dead body in her dumpster. Her skin crawled, shivering a sick wave that turned her stomach as she reached out and dialed Max Evans. 

“You have reached Max Evans. If this is an emer-” She hung up, pulling up her contacts and hitting the first on the list.

“ _Liz Ortecho_ is currently un-” She hung up, dialing Alex next. Then Kyle Valenti. She tried Guerin. She suddenly wanted to just call Rosa, old pain welling unexpected and bright.

“Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.” She finally took a long shaking breath and called the cops. 

It was a mess, five straight hours of questioning, pictures, taped off areas, flashing endless red and blue lights. She spoke in a quiet voice, answering every question Sheriff Valenti asked her in simple sentences. She didn’t want the publicity. She didn’t need the way mom’s in minivans were craning their necks to see what was happening at the Wild Pony. She hugged her arms to herself, feeling the way her hair was whipping around her face and started pulling it up into a quick loose french braid. Five hours of crime scene vans and pictures, casts of tire marks, and endless pictures numbered with little yellow flags.

“Can you fill the potholes while you’re at it?” She joked weakly at the thin man with red hair and acne who just glanced up at her, shook his head, and went back to pouring plaster.

Five hours and she was supposed to open soon, the afternoon drawing up tight to the building. She took Sheriff Valenti’s card, tucking it into the pocket of her shorts and went back inside. She closed the back door, feeling the way the whole bar went still. There was no music, no laughter, no press of bodies and clink of glassware. The toilets were silent, the soda gun still needed to be taken out of the cleaner. She needed to fill and start the dishwasher behind the bar, run it a few times to bring it to temp. She needed to polish the glasses and take down the chairs, but she sat at the bar and put her head down to cry.

Maria saved herself: every, damn, time.

Twenty minutes later she’d sniffled her way to numb. She went to the office, dialed the combination on the safe and pulled the drawers. She walked out, the change a good loud sound rattling on her hip and pulled over a stool. She had to count it three times before she managed to make it through the twenties to start on the tens.

“Hey, DeLuca.” She froze, panic rising high to knot in her throat before she managed to pick her eyes up and see Michael Guerin in the mirror behind her bar. She took a second to realize the front door must have still been unlocked and it warred with how relieved she was that he was here, that he must have gotten her message. She hated the way she went watery at the sight of him, the way he seemed safe after a morning of fear and confusion. She hated that he just came into her bar and smiled at her and she had to physically restrain herself from flinging into his arms. She could smell him from here, dust and sweat and smoke with something more feral and dark under all of it. A little bit unwashed curls and a little bit that musk that came from sleeping in yesterday’s clothes. “Let me guess, you’re closed?”

She spun in the chair, holding onto the bar for balance and stared at him. He would leave if she told him to. He would walk right out the front door with that hurt look and he would _leave_. He would go and there would still be the memory of Racist Hank staring at her with those dead eyes. She’d be alone in the silence. She’d be alone again with her fear. She’d be _alone_. “No, we’re... open, actually.” _Don’t you dare leave_. She watched him take off his hat, the gnawing realization that he was going to kiss her dawning. It fought with the panic and fear of the morning. She stared, heard the strange strangled little noise he made, the way his smile only twitched the corner of his mouth- not even managing the arrogant cocksureness of a few weeks ago. He was safe. She felt safe with him and he’d come when no one else had.

He said something as he walked closer, but she wasn’t listening, not really. She just wanted a moment of her own. A moment to not think about anything, but something as simple as lips on hers and that singing blood pounding sparkle of being _alive_. She wanted to stop thinking about the way a fly had landed on Hank’s mouth, flicking its wings and starting to crawl over his lips. Michael Guerin kissed her: once, twice, and she kissed him back.

She kissed him back and it _hurt_ when what she was doing became something less than automatic. She ducked her head and pulled back. “But we really need to ta-”

“Talk?” Guerin sounded so defeated with that one word. He sounded lost and repeated it like he was tired of the syllables, the weight of what they meant. He tried to laugh and she almost kissed him again to keep him from making that broken sound.

“Yeah.” 

She watched him start nodding, voice tight in his throat like a lie. “Yeah,” he paused, and she could see the way he was struggling with something, feel it in the press of confusion between his palms. “We will.” He was lying, but she let it slide. She didn’t want to be alone and he didn’t either. “But first, do you mind if I?” He made some pantomime for guitar and she nodded, taking a step back as reality started crashing around her, dodging the guilt like a minefield as he picked up Dead Hank’s guitar and sat.

And then, somehow, she was alone again. 

He was playing, real and actual, just there in the bar. She’d never heard him play, didn’t even know that he could, had thought the story about being a rockstar was just that- a story. She watched, fascinated for a moment at the way he disappeared into it, leaving her behind to try to push the thoughts of Alex away. She was alone with nothing to push the thoughts of the way the dumpster smelled like burnt flesh, ozone, and curdled beer. Maria couldn’t push away everything that was happening in her small world and find solace and quiet in the music.

It was so _loud_ now, the dishwasher still silent and a picked perfect melody curling around her as she realized that the noise wasn’t hers. It sounded like fire and the crumble of cement and rain and screaming and broken hearts. She thumbed her necklace, world going quieter for a moment like it always did when she stroked over the encased flowers. Michael glanced up, stretching his hand and gave her the saddest smile she’d seen since Alex had told her “Okay.”

He was stretching his hand. The hand that had been broken so badly he couldn’t bend the last two fingers. The hand that always made him look like a dainty girl at a tea party when he held his whiskey. The hand that she’d watched him ask to be healed. She inhaled sharply, eyes going wide as he started to play again. She was about to get up, about to walk across the room and grab his hand, drag it to her so she could _see_ when he hit a sour note.

The bar was quiet, no breeze to swing the light over the felt top pool table gently from side to side. No music pouring from the speakers mounted to the ceiling. No laughter, no raucous bawdy words being tossed casually from one table to the next. The lights were half on, the bar half ready to be open. It was quiet in the breath after the twanged string as it snapped and Michael went stiff like he’d been hit with a cattle prod- head jerking back before rocking forward, falling off the stool onto his knees as he gritted through what seemed like a seizure, but also oddly, how her Mom looked after a nightmare.

He came to, mouth open and wet, eyes red and sunk into his head as he stumbled to his feet, guitar cracked on the floor and hat kicked under the closest table. He looked around, focusing through the wall to a point she couldn’t see and simply said one word. 

“Max.”

**

It was dark in the bunker. Kyle didn’t think that was a sentence he’d ever considered as something that would be commonplace. _It was dark in the bunker_. The string lights catching on the military bland paint and splashing sickly yellow green around the rebar and cement. He was leaning against the long table in the middle, probably something left over from the fifties, heavy and metal with a solid formica top. He was rubbing at the edge of the vest and staring down at where Master Sergeant Jesse Manes was face down on the floor.

“Fuck.” 

He was shaking, hands trembling and fingers cold with the wash of fading adrenaline. He _hurt_ , breathing shallow around what was going to be a spectacular bruise. He stared at the sprawl of the man who’d shot him. The man who’d left scars on Alex. The man who’d blown up an entire building full of elderly people. The monster who’d shoved his father into a cell with certain death. He took one quick step forward and kicked him, the weight and shock of it so very different from kicking a soccer ball. It thudded up his body, the swing of his arms pulling at what was probably a broken rib. He sneered down, rolling his eyes at himself before reaching over to steady himself on the table again. 

“Worth it.” He nodded once and snagged his phone off the pile of medical texts he’d stacked next to Alex’s mix of cryptolinguistics manuals and a few scattered comic books. He glanced to the side, kicking an ankle and catching Jesse Manes with the back of his heel. “Okay. _Now_ I’m done.”

He sniffed, wiping at his face with the back of his wrist before hooking his fingers into the neckline of the vest and started to walk outside. The bunker had zero cell service. He hauled himself up the stairs by the rail, staring at the heavy blast door for a moment before simply gritting his teeth and pulling through the sharp startle of pain that flashed through him. He’d dislocated his shoulder his first year at U of M falling out of a keg stand at the Frat party and this was worse. The hallway had the same bland lighting and he limped to the front, tapping out the passcode that unlocked and depressurized the vault seal, stepping into the small enclave and blowing out another breath as it closed behind him, air a whirlwind in the space before stilling and a soft click unlocked the front. He turned his good shoulder to the metal and glass. 

He hissed into bright sunshine, blinking and covering his eyes. He understood on a fundamental level what vampires felt like now, turning his gaze down and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the late afternoon sunshine. By the time his eye and his phone brightness caught up, he had four solid bars of service and two missed calls from his Mom and one from Alex. “Perfect.”

He thumbed the call back, listening to it ring before it clicked over after two to voicemail. “You did _not_ just-” He squared his jaw, hitting redial. One ring this time. Another and it rang four times before he heard Alex’s voicemail. He almost threw the phone, but instead tilted his head back, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and smiled a little cracked smile.

[sms:] 911. Bro. Seriously. 911.

{sms:} I’m in the middle of something  
{sms:} whats up

[sms] What’s up? Really bro?  
[sms] what’s up is that I might have-

He paused, trying to figure out how to make it abundantly clear that some shit had gone _down_.

[sms]- been fucking shot?? Maybe?

Okay, so Kyle wasn’t always the best at the covert secret agent shit.

{sms} WHAT  
{sms} where are you

[sms] Where do you think? I’m at the place with the stuff and the things that people who want to get shot are at

{sms} ill be right there

There was a pause and Kyle was about to tuck his phone back into his pocket when it vibrated again. 

{sms} be safe

Alex fucking Manes.

**

They hadn’t set a time, but Alex knew that after the night Michael must have had that he’d need to sleep in. He’d waited until around three in the afternoon before starting to get dressed to head over. It was an arming scene, strapping into something that made him feel safe, made him feel strong. He thumbed the edge of the zipper on the jacket, the smell warm and alive and nodded once at himself in the rear view mirror before starting the drive to Sander’s Auto.

Michael’s truck wasn’t there, the lights off in the Airstream and Alex just nodded once, worry curling deep in his gut before he pushed out of his car and started to the metal lawn chair. He should have texted first, but it seemed too impersonal. He threaded his fingers together, leaning forward over his knees and waited. 

The auto yard was a mishmash of car parts, half done art sculpture, and gas cans. The main garage bay a large open sided structure with the rolling carts lined neatly against the wall. Michael liked to pretend he was a mess, but Alex remembers the neat way he would line up his thoughts on paper in high school, a branching index that was cross referenced and carefully annotated. He tried so hard to fly under the radar, to be quietly sarcastic as he stared out the windows at the passing clouds. Michael was always halfway to somewhere else and Alex had watched him for two years before he’d finally spoken to him. He was part of the Evan’s circle, the Venn diagram vaguely overlapping more as they moved into senior year. Alex had AP English with Max and AP Trig and AP Chem with Michael.

Michael Guerin, who would smile to himself and tug one curl before scribbling the answer to the question on the board in moments, so he could turn the page and start working on whatever it was he was thinking about. Alex would catch glimpses of it, designs and formulas that were beyond what he could muster through. The math made sense, long strings of proofs that he figured were probably Physics, but he’d skipped that class in favor of band.

The wind kicked up, dancing in a small pirouette dust devil before clattering the hubcaps together. He rubbed his hands together, glad of the jacket. The storm had pushed the little bit of vestigial warmth over the far off mountains, leaving behind the crackling sort of cold that lay light hands on the desert. He could feel his cheeks going red, tip of his nose and ears starting to go numb. He sniffled, rolling his eyes as he checked the time again. 

His thoughts veered suddenly, back to the way he’d felt seeing the blood- he was sure it was blood- on Michael’s shirt, his skin. So much, flecked and flaking but still very much painted on his skin and scabbing slightly into the back of his curls like he’d been laying in it. He’d had a moment to take the shirt he’d left behind and put it into the small Airstream sink, setting it to soak. Michael didn’t have bleach, but he had more nail polish remover than Alex had seen outside of a Sam’s Club. He’d had blood on his hands, watery pink and he’d swiped at his jeans. He was shaking, sick with the memory of what he’d said. Sick with how it had felt like lancing a wound until Michael had been silent, eyes always so full of tears when he looked at Alex. That wasn’t the point, it wasn’t the reason he’d said it and now he couldn’t take it back.

Michael had bolted out of the trailer and Alex had been left with the weight of words on his chest, tightening his lungs and he’d practiced it. He’d practiced what he would say this time. How he would phrase it, careful and kind like the way he wanted to touch Michael. Patient and kind, but present. _Here_ , not in the past. He’d watched the way his eyes went firm in the bathroom mirror. “I love you.” He’d said it again, this time without the shrug. He didn’t want to give Michael any reason to question him. He didn’t want to give him any reason to run.

“I love you.” He had blown out a breath, nodding once. It wasn’t much of a speech. It wasn’t much more than three words that sat like salt on his tongue- burning and maybe not enough, but it was all he had.

Alex rubbed at his thigh, the muscle cramping as he lifted the weight of his limb, letting the prosthetic settle slightly differently in the boot. He tugged at the edge of his sock, hiding the titanium and making sure the leg of the dark jeans was a match for the left. He felt his phone vibrate in the inside pocket, startling him with a twist of panic-

_Michael bleeding out somewhere in the desert. Michael crying in the dirt. Michael dead by the side of the road. Michael hurt and he couldn’t save him, couldn’t help him. Michael behind a wall of glass trying not to break it from the inside out. Michael chained and gagged with his father holding the key. Michael-_

It was Kyle. He sent it to voicemail, swallowing down the panic. His phone lit up again, he sent it to voicemail, hoping Kyle would get the point. He stared out at the winding drive that led to the Scrapyard. He strained, hoping to hear the rough squeal of metal on metal that meant Michael’s truck was coming down the drive, rumbling over the cow bars at the fence line. His phone rumbled again and he let it ring.

He said he’d wait. He was waiting. They would talk, for real this time. He would tell Michael the truth- his truth. He’d stand there in his dark jeans, the jacket and that red he knew Michael liked- the way Michael’s smile had tilted softly sexual when he’d plucked at the line of buttons on the red button up he’d worn to the reunion, the heat of his breath on his jaw, his _mouth_ -

[sms:] 911. Bro. Seriously. 911.

Alex gritted his teeth, closing his eyes and stood, already moving towards his Jeep even as he typed. {sms:} I’m in the middle of something  
{sms:} whats up

[sms] What’s up? Really bro?  
[sms] what’s up is that I might have been fucking shot?? Maybe?

Alex startled, catching the phone as he dropped it and nearly falling over before he steadied himself with one hand against the roof of his Jeep.

{sms} WHAT  
{sms} where are you

[sms] Where do you think? I’m at the place with the stuff and the things that people who want to get shot are at

Alex looked around, desperate for some sign that Michael was on his way, but the junkyard simply sat empty, the hub caps clattering a sad song in the cold breeze. He shook his head, closing his eyes against the way he was walking away again and texted Kyle.

{sms} ill be right there  
{sms} be safe

He pocketed his phone and pulled open the door, taking a moment to stare at the empty space where Michael’s truck should have been. He thought about leaving a note, but maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was better to let Michael come home from wherever he was and see his shirt in the sink and the text from him asking when they could talk. He wasn’t intruding this way. He nodded once, only a quarter convinced and got behind the wheel.

{sms}Just let me know you’re safe, okay? 

Michael left him on read.

**

Liz was calm. She was calm and she was going to get this done. She took a handful of the silver solution, wincing at the heat of it and turned to where Rosa was staring down at Max. Her sister was trembling and wearing his clothes, five sizes too big, but better than the ratty blanket she’d been wrapped in. It was definitely better than still naked from the pod. They’d cuffed the bottom of his jeans six times, the donut roll of denim at the bottom almost comical over her dainty ankles. His shirt dangled well past her wrists and Liz couldn’t help but think of a toddler wearing her mother’s shoes clopping around the diner before it opened. She’d always been chasing Rosa, running so fast ahead of her that she seemed blurry and out of focus, but here she was _alive_ , alive and watching Max on the ground. He was naked, skin still warm, but cooling.

“This is so _fucked_.”

Liz squared her jaw and started to smear the solution over his collarbones. He’d been laughing the last time she’d touched him like this, ticklish and wide eyed as she sat over his hips, watching him from under the dark tent of her hair. She smeared it up the line of his neck to the sharp cut of his jaw. He’d turned into her touch, kissing the inside of her wrist as he pulled up, stomach going tight as he circled her waist- hands huge and strong. She’d felt small and delicate, precious and _needed_. His head just rolled to the side, mouth soft in what was definitely at a right angle from sleep.

“Liz. Liz this is so fucked. What do we do?” Rosa’s voice was behind her. She could hear it in the quiet closeness of the cave, but she had a job to do. She had a job and Max was so big. 

“Help me get this on him.” She knew her voice was level, deceptively calm as she worked, reaching over to scoop more silver. 

“Liz?”

“Do it!” And she bit her own lip, tasting blood as she reigned in, smoothing the silver over his cheeks and across his brow, into his hair. She turned, catching and holding Rosa’s dark eyes. “Do it. Please. I _love_ him, Rosa.”

Rosa stared, mouth hanging open slightly on the soft panted breaths of panic, but she nodded. She started at his shins as Liz kept working the solution into every part of Max’s skin she could reach. “Liz?”

“We have to make sure the solution is completely covering him, Rosa. The particles will precipitate forming a barrier. I’m going to need help getting to his back.” She nodded a few times, blowing her hair out of her face and reaching for the next handful. “Once we do that, the barrier on the pod slips around the molecules I guess? Like osmosis on a macroscopic level.”

“I have no idea what that means, Liz.”

She nodded, starting over his shoulders and not lingering to count the freckles this time. “He’ll be absorbed into the cocoon. He’ll be safe, like stasis.” She nodded again, eyes going wide as she heard the way her voice shook and she took a long breath, hands still moving, always moving and so careful.

“I could feel him, Liz. Is he like-”

“He’s not dead. I won’t let him be dead.”

“Is he an alien, too?”

Liz startled, looking over at Rosa, stilling for a moment. “Yes.” She nodded once and they both froze at the clamor at the front of the sinkhole. Someone was coming.

“Max!” Isobel Evans’ voice cracked as she stumbled on low heels through the passage into the chamber. Her eyes were wild, over wide and her hair a disheveled that Liz had never seen. She looked wrecked- twisted up and thrown away with her hands out, dirt smudged on her cheekbone and what looked like vomit on her shirt. Isobel gasped, fingers flying up to her mouth as she hit a visible wall of fear- stock still and staring at where Rosa and Liz were crowded around a naked and silver covered Max. “What?” She cast about, catching on Rosa’s eyes and startled back like she’d been hit. “What!”

Liz didn’t have time for a breakdown. “Panic later, help me get him in the pod.”

“What the _fuck_?” And now it was Rosa. “What the _actual_ fuck? What is she doing here? Get away from me!”

Liz heard the way she screamed, wordless and violent. She screamed, snarling at the two girls. “Later! Panic _later_!” She looked at where Isobel was shaking and gritted out an exhaled plea. “Help me.”

The cave was quiet for a half breath, just three girls in the fading light and the smell of silver and hot metal, of something dirty and close, and death. She held Isobel’s eyes until the other woman shrugged out of her coat and stumbled to kneel next to her, reaching for the silver even as she and Rosa locked gazes over Max’s naked torso. “Michael’s coming,” Isobel managed after a moment, and Liz would have reached over to calm the tremble in her hands- offered her some comfort, but this was more important.

“Good,” she managed. “I can’t reach his back. He’s too heavy.”

They had finished coating the parts of him they could reach, the dead weight of him bending at the elbow, knee and thigh when Michael skidded into the cave. He was stumbling with a hand in the dirt as he tripped over a branch, clumsy and red eyed. He stared at them, at Isobel and Liz and Rosa and Max.

“That fucking _idiot_. Fucking stupid, Max. _Stupid_. What-” He didn’t finish, just shook out a breath and squared his jaw. Max lifted, floppy as a ragdoll into the air and she could hear the way Michael was in pain. 

She didn’t care. 

She worked, methodical and frenzied. He was going colder, the solution starting to harden and shimmer on his skin. He was turning into a statue of himself and she had to work faster. She had to do more. 

He’d saved her so many times. It was her turn now. She squeezed his fingers and started coating his back. “Vas a sonreírme de nuevo. Vas a abrir los ojos y vas a tocarme. Vas a disfrutar de los primeros rayos del sol y vas a besarme hasta que se borren todos mis pensamientos. I love you, Max Evans. Vuelve a mí. You come _home_.”

The cave was just a room full of the wet sounds of smearing solution and the harsh panted breaths of four people with a single task. She wiped at her eyes, getting silver in her hair and striping it over her cheekbone. She nodded at Michael and he made a low pained noise- pushing with the last of what he had and slipped Max into the pod. It pulsed once, that dark amber glowing bright for a breath before it folded him up small and safe like a secret.

She stared, palm against the barrier, fingers a little smudged into the film and watched his hair float, watched the shadow of his lashes on his cheeks. 

“Liz?” She whirled, watching the way everyone in the cave flinched away from the voice at the entrance- the soft warm voice of Maria DeLuca in utter question as she stared around the candle lit cave. She watched Maria’s eyes go wide. She watched the way she skipped from anger to rage to denial and back to confusion as she looked at Michael, his black hat in her hands. She watched Maria startle and drop the felt when Rosa shifted, leaning out from behind where Isobel was standing. “Liz?” She saw the way Maria’s jaw went hard and her eyes sparked rage and stared at her. “ _What is going on_?”

**

Michael Guerin was sick with need of sleep. He’d been up for almost four days. He’d watched his mother burn. He’d watched Noah die. He’d been trapped in a car with Kyle fucking Valenti. He’d had Alex under his hands and Maria’s lips on his breath. He’d been stabbed. He’d been pushed past his limits. He’d been healed and hurt and twisted up and thrown aside. He’d confessed his love and been stabbed in the head with a psychic scream twice in the space of 12 hours. He’d been holding Max’s dead weight. Hell, he’d probably been dead at one point, but he wasn’t keeping count. He was wrung out and numb. He was overfull and bloated with secrets. He was exhausted in a way that reached past the marrow of his bones and into the soul of him.

Maria was in the cave with his hat in her hands. Maria was the last thing that didn’t think he was a freak. She was the last person who had thought he was just a normal run of the mill drunk and delinquent and she was staring at Liz Ortecho like a tower of rage.

“Shit.”

Michael Guerin did the politic thing for once in his life and simply passed out.

**  
Isobel Evans watched Michael crumple, nose crinkling as she shook her head. “That’s cheating.”  


“What the fuck is going on?” For once, she and Maria DeLuca were in perfect agreement.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex pushed out of his car, slamming the door behind him. The wind was bitter cold and it shoved it’s way between the military buildings. The bunkers were the proper distance apart, the closest sat squat and round, doors facing out to a parking lot that had recently been repainted. The look of disrepair was cultivated, the rust spots on the rivets reading age. The trees were overgrown, bushes collecting the spindly ivy vines that would cauterize in the full New Mexico summer. In winter everything seemed various shades of brown and tan. Alex absently noted that he’d have to wear his desert ABU’s for full camouflage until the rainy season pushed color back into the trees. He shooed the thought away.
> 
> Kyle was leaning against the bunker wall, one foot up and texting. “Are you serious? I thought you’d been shot!”
> 
> “I _was_ shot.” Kyle nodded, wetting his lips as he continued the text and used it to gesture vaguely to his shoulder. “Bullet proof vest.”
> 
> “I didn’t think people wore those in real life,” Alex muttered, moving closer just to be sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hover over languages for translation.

Alex pushed out of his car, slamming the door behind him. The wind was bitter cold and it shoved it’s way between the military buildings. The bunkers were the proper distance apart, the closest sat squat and round, doors facing out to a parking lot that had recently been repainted. The look of disrepair was cultivated, the rust spots on the rivets reading age. The trees were overgrown, bushes collecting the spindly ivy vines that would cauterize in the full New Mexico summer. In winter everything seemed various shades of brown and tan. Alex absently noted that he’d have to wear his desert ABU’s for full camouflage until the rainy season pushed color back into the trees. He shooed the thought away.

Kyle was leaning against the bunker wall, one foot up and texting. “Are you serious? I thought you’d been shot!”

“I _was_ shot.” Kyle nodded, wetting his lips as he continued the text and used it to gesture vaguely to his shoulder. “Bullet proof vest.”

“I didn’t think people wore those in real life,” Alex muttered, moving closer just to be sure.

“What kind of...” Kyle trailed off, frowning down at his phone darkly and continuing to tap out a message with quick thumbs. He shook his head and sent the text with an angry flick of finger. “What kind of world do we live in that it’s totally cool to wear a gun but not a bullet proo-” He cut off, finally glancing up and cocking his head sharply. “Oh hey,” Kyle’s smile went genuine and crooked as his eyebrows shot up. “Hot date?”

Alex thinned his mouth, blushing in spite of himself and tilted his shoulders under the weight of the jacket. “Shut it. I look good.” He flicked his eyebrows up. “And apparently not. _Someone_ got shot.”

“Almost shot.”

“Mostly shot?”

“To blathe,” Kyle hooked a finger into the hole in his shirt. 

Alex paled slightly. The shooter had exceptional aim; if Kyle hadn’t been wearing the vest he would have been dead instantly. “Jesus, Kyle.” He reached out, pausing before pulling his fingers back and giving him a flat mouthed look. “What the hell happened? Why do you own a vest?”

The wind kicked up, icy and persistent. The trees shook, dry oak leaves fluttering before shaking out to swirl around their feet. Kyle looked down before gesturing around broadly, taking in the abandoned military complex they were standing in, and somehow further to Roswell and beyond. “Apparently there’s aliens?” He gave a smile that was barely more than showing his teeth. “And secret exploding military bases and massive government conspiracies and murders and you’re asking why I have a vest? Seriously?”

Alex paused, wetting his lips. He glanced back at his car and then over to the door. He was used to this life, to the fire and blood, to the constant aching fear that sat high in his chest like a vice. He shifted his weight onto his left leg before his right calf started aching- the phantom limb twingeing threateningly. Their shadows stretched to the east, slightly darker than his mood. “There are only four people who have the combination to the bunker and unless something really fucked up happened I don’t think Cameron shot you.” He blinked. “She didn’t shoot you did she?”

Kyle snorted. “Not Jenna.”

Alex pulled up instinctively, jaw going hard as he started toward the doors. “Is he still here?” His father always hit his mark, whether it was a hammer or a gun.

“Sort of?” Kyle reached out, grabbing the door to hold it for Alex, glancing around before following him back into the dark.

“That’s ominous,” Alex muttered, waiting for the secondary blast door to open. He reached out, touching the flaking paint on the wall and started down the brief down slope to the doors to the main antechamber. There were several chambers from the hallway, but the computer array and main meeting area was down a set of stairs on the first doors on the right. There was a closet, a munitions alcove, and a full bunk to the left. The lights hummed, a low and constant c-note that was oddly calming. He let Kyle pass him, holding the door for him in return and paused at the top of the steps. 

Kyle shrugged and gestured to where Master Sergeant Jesse Manes was indelicately sprawled face down on the floor. The table was a mess, the chairs overturned, papers fluttering in the cross breeze from the air system, and a the marble bottomed lamp off the far desk and sat on it’s side on the table. “So yeah. Sort of here.”

“Is he dea-”

“Coma.” Kyle sucked his teeth for a second before shrugging. “Medically induced.” He frowned. “Didn’t think I’d be using my medical degree for this shit.”

Alex swallowed his response, settling for a wide eyed vaguely impressed look. “Okay.” He looked over at Kyle. “Now what?”

“I was really hoping you had that answer.”

The metal railing was cold under his palms as Alex reached for something to center him. “This is really not how I saw today going.”

“Well, we can’t _all_ lounge around looking good in leather.” Kyle shrugged. He nodded a few times before clapping his hands together and pointing with two fingers at where Jesse was sprawled. “Hospital?”

Alex took a deep breath. “No.” He shook his head. “We need something... private.” He blinked, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Private.” He started to smile, surprised at the solution that crept into view. “Secret.”

The bunker light flickered once, buzzing back to full steam and Kyle turned and looked between Alex and Jesse Manes. “Oh.” He nodded. “OH!”

Alex smiled when Kyle caught up and started down the stairs. “Yeah. _Oh._ ”

**  
“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” Maria’s voice rose and cracked right down the center, Isobel would flinch, but she was too busy glaring at where Michael was crumpled on the ground. “Someone had better start talking right now. Right. _NOW_.”

Liz opened her mouth, chin tilting down and to the side while she looked for the right words. Isobel rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest and sinking easily into that superior stance. “I’m an alien. So’s he.” She pointed at Michael. The candles flickered against the cave walls, the light starting to go gummy and weak. Isobel knew she was a wreck, could feel the way her hair was tangling and slipping out of the half braid. She could still taste the acetone and bile in her mouth. She wanted to take a moment to straighten herself, but she was committed to this cruelty. Being mean was easier than dealing with the pain that was trying to claw out of her throat. It was easier to punish and snark than turn around and look at Max floating in that pod. It was easier than turning to face the girl who’d she _felt_ things for. The girl who Noah had died to protect. The girl who changed everything when she died. When Isobel had _killed_ her. She gave a sharp small smile with a small off balance wiggle of her shoulders. “Surprise.”

Maria glowered at her, face a bleak mess of anger fueled by indignation and Isobel was angry that she was trying to make this about _her_. “Fucking spare me, Regina George.” She had a death grip on Michael’s black hat and Isobel was pretty sure the felt was going to rip. Isobel wanted to take it from her, put a hand on her wrist and snatch that back. It wasn’t hers. She didn’t belong here. It didn’t belong to her. “Liz? Start talking.”

Isobel narrowed her eyes, nearly snarling at the tone and put a hand out, like she was getting between Rosa and Maria instinctively and then pulled it back, shaking her head at the memory that wasn’t _hers_. She didn’t want it. “Did I stutter?” 

Maria took a step forward and Isobel snarled. 

“Cállate! SHUT UP!” And it was Rosa who screamed loud this time, always an explosion, always heat and fire. _No wonder she burned_. That thought was like a bucket of cold water and Isobel started shaking, eyes going wide as the fight simply drained out of her. She covered her mouth and looked behind her. Liz Ortecho stood backlit and glowing amber with Max just there- so quiet. He was a blank spot in her mind, an echo of the blank spot where Maria stood.

"Someone wake Michael up." Liz said as she huffed a quick breath, shaking her head and pulling herself up straight. She was like a dancer, tugged from her core and radiating a calm that spread in ripples from her ribcage. Isobel nodded and let her gaze glance off of where Rosa was standing and back over her shoulder to Maria. The other woman had let go of the hat and was simply staring at Rosa with disbelief.

"Are you real?" It was the soft voice of grief made secret and small and Isobel had to duck under it. She sank down next to Michael, swiping at her nose with the back of her wrist and gritting her jaw at him. Behind her she could feel something big and real, something like hope and it was terrifying just then- terrifying in the sinking dark that was starting to settle on the cave. The candles glowed brighter and it would have been romantic if it wasn't a shrine to the dead girl two feet to her left by the man who'd shared her bed for the last seven years.

"I think so?" Rosa still sounded nineteen, but oddly older. Isobel almost laughed-- death kind of changed people. She bit her bottom lip against a sudden urge to giggle and set her hand on Michael's brow.

"Max healed her. They have powers." Liz was speaking plainly, explaining in small sentences and simple words.

"That was _true_?"

"Yes." The Ortecho sisters were back together and instantly in synch, nodding as Isobel glanced up to see Maria flinch- like the truth was a slap.

She watched Maria cover her mouth, dropping the hat like it was in her way as she stumbled forward finally with a small cry. "Rosa." Isobel frowned at the feel of something curling in her stomach, dark and sharp and unwelcome as the girls flung themselves together, gripping like they were saved, like they were safe. Isobel Evans didn't get jealous; she got even.

"Wake up, you asshole," she muttered, teeth clenched as she _reached_ for Michael and the world slipped sideways into flares of blue and purple. 

She slipped into his mind like stepping into a storm-- finding him tucked under something heavy and black that felt like oblivion and tragedy. They were still in the cave, but it was this cave and the other cave and a closet. It was a tool shed and a music room; it was a tent outside and something more than that, but less than it too. The scene changed too quickly. Michael was always like this, always a dizzying press of too much. She found him sitting in the dark, arms wrapped around his knees and eyes closed, quiet tears streaming down his face and it was so out of character and so perfectly him that she wasn't sure she was looking in the right place. She was herself, but then she was Max and then Noah then Liz then Maria and the hands that reached out all stuttered and caught up with each other like he was fighting her and asking her to come in over and over and over. The scenes switched around him, dizzying and chaotic. She gritted her teeth, pushing _harder_ into his mind until she found the one shape he stopped for. It was always like this, like an earthquake or a flip book of too much too fast in his mind, but he was still in the center of it. She wore Alex Manes like a loose garment and grabbed his wrist, pulling him. "Wakey wakey."

His eyes flashed open and something dark and broken was there-- bright and burning in the warm brown of his gaze before it shut down and she was shoved out.

"Get out of my head," he breathed, voice raw like he'd been sobbing as the muscle in his jaw jumped.

"There you are," Isobel breathed, clutching the front of his shirt. She bent, touching her forehead to his on a soft sigh. "You left me here with these bitches, you dick."

Michael groaned and she felt him twist, stretching slightly before his hand came up to cup the back of her head. "I can't be everywhere, Iz."

"God, you stink," she muttered, pulling back to smile down at him. He made a face, reaching to wipe at her eyes.

"I haven't really had a chance to shower."

It was an _I love you_. She’d learned early on that Michael said it in so many different words. She gave him a quick nod to the questioning palm on her face before she looked past where the three girls were hugging and whispering to Max. "You can shower at my place later. We've got bigger problems than your river smell."

"I wish I could say I missed you, but I can't seem to get a break." He closed his eyes and she could feel him pull everything tight and close, like shoving everything into an unused closet to hide a mess.

Isobel was surrounded by people who were breaking and it seemed so wildly unfair for a moment, just so universally and cosmically unfair that she sat back on her heels and pouted at the ceiling. She almost sat on Michael's hat, catching it before she could crush it and dropped it on his stomach as he panted at the ceiling. He nodded a few times, swallowing back bile and she sucked her teeth, grimacing at the taste. She didn't want to look to the left; didn't need to see this family reunion that had so thoroughly broken _hers_.

"Maria's here." 

"What?" Michael didn't have the energy to sit up, but she watched him shudder through an attempt before he just placed both hands on his hat. " _Fuck_. I knew that."

"You were with her when M-"

"Yeah."

Isobel swallowed and frowned darkly at him, remembering for a moment the half real memory of her hand looking like someone else's when he'd finally followed her out of the dark. "You're an idiot."

His laugh sounded like a sob and he tossed her that wild insouciant smile. "We've established this."

Isobel turned to stare at the pod while Michael managed to get to his knees, both hands braced as he closed his eyes around a roll of nausea. She glanced over to the girls, catching Liz’s eyes over their hair and nodded once. Liz pulled back, cupping Rosa’s jaw with a palm and then looked at Maria with a silent demand. “I need you to take her.”

Maria shook her head slightly, fingers tightening on Liz’s shirt before she looked over her shoulder at where Isobel and Michael were. Isobel watched her shut down, face going blank as she stared at the secret that had always been bubbling just under the surface of everything. She noticed the way Maria’s fingers flew to the necklace she was always wearing and how the quiet _intensified_ around her. “I’m not leaving you with th-”

“Oh please,” Isobel groused, wiping at her jaw and pushing to her feet. She hid the way her knees wobbled slightly with a little curtsey. “She’s safe.” Rosa glared at her over Maria’s shoulder and the twin stares of loathing nearly cut her back down to small, but she smoothed the lie back on and smiled sweetly at them both. 

Liz coughed slightly, widening her eyes and throwing Isobel a pointed look. Isobel sighed, rolling her eyes and softened. “We have to help Max.” She wet her lips and gestured to where Max was floating in the pod behind them. She didn’t like the way Maria’s face went thoughtful for a moment, like she was measuring her. She didn’t like the way the empathy crashed over her mouth, softening it into a sad twist. She wanted to put her hands over that look, to hide it away. She didn’t want her pity, didn’t need her sympathy. 

“Please,” Liz breathed and Maria looked away from Isobel, gaze glancing over Michael like a skipped stone- like looking at him hurt and she didn’t miss the way Michael looked down sharply.

“If you’re sure.” Maria straightened and it was easy to forget how small she was. She was a petite woman, but a woman- all curves and soft angles with a spine of steel. She caught Rosa’s hand, tangling their fingers together and it was like high school all over again. She remembered watching those two wild creatures running through the halls and so sure of their place in opposition to the world. Isobel ducked her head at the way her mouth watered and refused to spit. 

“Keep her hidden,” Liz finished. “I _have_ to do this, Maria.”

“No confíes en ellos,” Rosa whispered, eyes locking on Isobel as she spoke. “Es una mentirosa.”

“Je peux parler une autre langue comme si c’était d'un secret aussi, salope,” Isobel replied, nose wrinkling. She didn’t like the way she couldn’t stand to look at Rosa. She hated the way she didn’t want to look away and turned to stare at Maria, but that simply poured fuel on her anger. She closed her eyes and looked at nothing instead. “We have a common purpose,” she finished.

“ _Max._ ” Sometimes, Liz Ortecho could cut through the bullshit and Isobel envied her that. Sometimes, it made her see why Max loved her.

**

Rosa Ortecho was nineteen and somehow she was still sitting shotgun to Maria DeLuca. She was nineteen and Maria was so much older now, her hands gripping the wheel and her braces were just gone, like Rosa had blinked and the world had spun out from underneath her. Maria was beautiful; she’d always been beautiful, but now it was polished like a desert stone in a tumbler. Rosa wanted to say something, but everything was just sitting high in her throat. She twisted her hands together and tried not to keep staring at Maria’s profile. She tried not to stare down at the over long sleeves of the snap front shirt she was wearing. She tried not to think about the way the boots were too big and had left blisters on her heels as she’d had to clomp along awkwardly through the ravine. She was tired of the desert. She was tired of everything being just a hand span out of her control.

“So, you got hot.”

Maria snorted, choking once and shook her head, throwing Rosa a look like drowning. “Yeah?”

Rosa shrugged and sank down in the bucket seat until she could prop her knees on the dash. It felt safer down here, low to the floor and only seeing the sky through the windows. That hadn’t changed at least. “Yeah.”

The road stretched out straight in front of them and Rosa wanted to throw herself out of the moving car, but settled for chewing on her thumbnail. She could count the broken yellow line as it kept time with her heart. She could feel it beating in her chest and she knew that was strange because she’d felt it _stop_. She didn’t like the way the shirt smelled.; it smelled like men and metal. She didn’t like the way everyone was moving so fast around her. She didn’t like that her life wasn’t hers anymore.

“How long?” 

The radio isn’t on so she can feel the silence in the hum of tires on asphalt and the slight tightening of Maria’s fingers on the wheel. She’d never driven with both hands on the wheel like this. DeLuca drove with the windows open: she drove with one hand on the wheel while the other hand rose and dove through the hot air outside. Maria drove and sang at the top of her lungs, both of them screaming lyrics to Jagged Little Pill and this wasn’t right. This moment of silence and tires and stretches of desert sand in every direction wasn’t right. It was too close and too quiet. The windows are closed and the radio is off and Rosa can feel the weight of what’s changed between them. 

Rosa had been left behind, buried in a past that was her stolen future.

“Ten years.” Maria managed, tilting her head and keeping her eyes carefully on the road. The same way a person froze when they thought they’d seen a ghost. 

“Oh.” Rosa blinked and a decade had passed.

“It sucks actually,” Maria started, wetting her lips and Rosa watched her face go open like she would before she started rambling. “Growing up. Being an adult blows. I have bills and break ups. I never left Roswell and I hate myself a little for it and worse I hate my Mom a little for it. Which is weird, because who hates their mother when they’re sick?” She frowned darkly, starting to nod along with her words. “I spend my nights slinging shots to idiots who think they’re better than their bartender.” She threw her hands up. “And fucking Hank? Racist Hank?” She turned wide eyes on Rosa. “He’s _dead_! He’s fucking dead and he was in my _dumpster_! What the actual _fuck_?”

Maria reached and hit the automatic window, letting a burst of cold air in to startle the space open and yawning, full of something that felt more like them. “He’s dead and I fucked Guerin and Alex is going to hate me and Liz is a fucking mess. Also?” She widened her eyes, relaxing into the rant. “Everyone seems to have this idea that I’m _okay_. That I’m perfectly okay just waiting for everything to make sense. That there’s fucking ALIENS. What. The. Fuck.” She gestured to where Rosa was sitting. “Did you see that coming? Because I did not. I mean, it’s like living in a town called Sasquatch and there’s a fucking Yeti who happens to work in the library.” She made a face and Rosa turned, tilting her head back against the window to watch Maria settle into something that made sense to her. Rosa was pretty sure if she reached to rummage in the bag she saw in the back seat she’d find some weed. “Also, you’re alive? Have you been alive this whole time?” 

Deluca paused, frowning and turned, reaching with one hand into the backseat and Rosa automatically leaned over, grabbing the wheel out of habit to steer on the straight lane road while Maria dug into her bag to pull out a joint and a hairbrush. She took the wheel back and handed the hairbrush to Rosa as she rolled the window up again, tucking the joint in her mouth.

Rosa started working the tangles out of the bottom of her hair, nodding as Maria reached into her own bra to grab a lighter. Rosa reflexively reached over again, holding the wheel while Maria flicked the bic to flame and inhaled once, widening her eyes and holding the smoke in her lungs. She could feel the thank you more than hear it as Maria popped the window open again, letting her exhale slip out and behind them as she drove. She handed the joint to Rosa, wetting her lips. 

“No, I would have known, that was a stupid question.” Maria sighed and visibly relaxed. “I missed you so much. So fucking much you don’t even know how much I missed you.” She took the joint back and shook her head, hitting it again- not noticing the way Rosa had skipped her turn to hit it.

The car felt like a time machine now, close and cold and safe. Rosa smiled, twisting her hair to tuck into the collar of the shirt- keeping it from blowing all around and tangling again. The smell of weed smoke crackling sharp and green in the space. She wanted to reach over and turn the stereo on, but she wasn’t sure which button was which so she just watched Maria. Her hair was shorter and she was sleek and sharp now. The softness of youth bled away, but still so simple and curved like a smile. She was still her Maria under all of those years and in that perfect toothed smile. Rosa didn’t realize she was crying until it dripped off her chin onto her wrists. “I’m sorry.”

Maria threw her a helpless smile, reaching over to touch her chin, kind and gentle the way she always did when Rosa apologized. “So am I.”

They settled back into silence, the road not so scary. The feel of her heart more normal. She nodded once and turned, tilting to lean her temple against Maria’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “I hate my Mom, too.”

Maria exhaled a laugh and hit the joint again. 

**

Bullet proof vests are incredibly uncomfortable, it turns out. Kyle finally just held up a hand, cutting Alex off mid word and started unbuttoning his shirt. He missed the way Alex’s eyebrows flashed up his forehead or the startled tilt to his head as his mouth snapped shut mid vowel. “Uh, Kyle?”

“It itches,” Kyle managed, twisting out of the blue button up and draping it over the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. The scream of velcro loud in the bunker as he started unstrapping. 

“Okay?”

Kyle gestured at it and started to shrug out of the weighted vest, tilting decidedly to the left to ease it away from what was blooming into a stunning bruise. “So, I’m taking it off.”

“I see that.”

“Like you don’t enjoy it.”

Alex thinned his mouth and arched a brow, coughing once and turning back to the computer array. “I didn’t say that.” He sighed, cracking his fingers one at a time before starting to write a long string of code in one breath. He kept his eyes up,.

“That’s not moving your Dad.”

“It’s removing him,” Alex muttered, grimacing once before starting to type again, shoulders hunching slightly. “He had a backdoor access. I can’t believe I didn’t think about it. You could’ve died.”

Kyle smiled, snagging his shirt and slipping it back on gingerly. “I left the door open.”

The chair squealed, needing oil, as Alex spun to stare at him, leaving the string of code hanging. “You _what_?”

“I had a feeling he was following me,” Kyle shrugged, wincing as he reached to rub at his shoulder absently. “So, I almost bought a gun.” He sucked his teeth, reaching behind him to snag one of the chairs from the long table, spinning it to sit backwards as he folded his arms over the back. “Bought the vest instead and set a trap. I think your Dad just assumed that I’d be-”

“An idiot?”

“Yeah.”

“Wonder why he would ever think that.”

“Fuck you, bro.” Kyle gave him a small smile and exhaled. “I’ve been underestimated most of my life.” He winked once, turning to look back at where they’d moved Jesse Manes onto a blanket. “It’s my stunning good looks.”

“Yes,” Alex snorted, turning back around. “It must be that.”

Kyle sighed. “Top of my class in Med School. First choice of internships. Surgeon. And all anyone sees are these cheekbones.”

Alex couldn’t help the startled laugh that shoved it’s way out of him, shaking his head as he typed and wet his lips. “Okay, I think I’ve got the encryption locked to just us for now.” He spun again, grinning smugly up at Kyle as he cocked his head. “If you think you and your cheekbones can handle some heavy lifting?”

“I’d flex, but I’d rip this shirt.”

“Also, you might tear something actually important,” Alex reminded him, chucking his chin at his shoulder. “I can help. Getting him down might be more difficult.”

“We could drop him?”

“True.”

“Or we could get some rope.”

“Rope, it is.”

**

The night settled like dust on the cave, filtering in and edging into every surface until all that Liz Ortecho had was the light cupping Max and the guttering candles that were snuffing out one at a time. The darkness pressed tight and close, whispering exhaustion against her skin and she simply shook her head and pressed a gentle touch to the curve of the pod. 

“It’s a broken pod, Liz,” Michael said. She didn’t turn around, closing her eyes and keeping herself upright against the urge to sag into despair. 

“That’s why the color is different?” She wanted to coat her hand and push into the amber light to card her fingers into his hair. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel the way his smile pressed against her skin. She wanted him to be alive and here. Instead she turned and looked at where Michael was standing.

He nodded. 

“And Noah told us it was broken.” Isobel spat Noah’s name like it couldn’t leave her mouth fast enough and Liz had the unreasonable urge to hug her. 

“Can we move it?” 

“Yeah?” Michael pinched the bridge of his nose and he looked as exhausted as she felt, wrung out and each of them crisped dry of emotion- brittle. She was brittle and it seemed like such a romantic word until it was applied to her. She needed Max now, craved him the way the desert yearned for rain. Arid. She felt arid and alone- crisp and breaking in places she didn’t even know she had.

“Good.” She nodded and pointed at them. “Rosa is alive. Max did that. If he can do that then we should be able to figure out _how_.” She took a long slow breath, mouth dry and she was so thirsty. She was half convinced she’d cry sand, cry microscopic shards of glass, ground up pieces of her heart. She choked back the maudlin and curled her hands into fists. “I’m going to bring him _back_.”

“Liz,” Michael’s voice was mild, pleading. “We can’t-”

“Don’t talk to me if all you have are failures and placation.” She glared at him, rage easy to reach. It was consuming and she was tinder. “You’re a fucking genius, Michael. Isobel can read people’s _minds_. I have three _fucking_ degrees.” 

Isobel closed her eyes and had the decency to look chastised. Michael just looked tired, curls wild and dark circles smudged under his eyes. She moved fast, grabbing Isobel’s wrist and pulling her close to press a palm against the pod, watching the glow ripple out in slow amber waves. “Michael. Please.” She swallowed, looking between them. “There has to be _something_. Some data. Some knowledge. Anything. You have to know something. I’ve seen your bunker. I’ve seen the ship designs. I know you can do this. _We_ can do this.”

“Noah did say we were only using a fraction of our potential,” Isobel breathed, opening her eyes and glancing back at Michael. “I moved a picture frame today.”

“No.” Michael shook his head. “No. You saw what happened when Max started playing God.” He pointed at the pod with his left hand before holding it up to wiggle his fingers at her, jaw hard. “We aren’t-”

“He’s our _brother_!” Michael jerked back like Isobel had hit him, a small whine hissing from him as he started pacing. She watched him stalk back and forth, shaking his head before throwing a pleading look at Isobel. She’d never seen him like this, all soft edges and pain. She’d seen his charm, the cocky smile. She’d seen the way he fidgeted through a day, unable to stay still. She’d seen the smirks. She’d seen the self deprecating smiles. She’d seen the wild unabashed joy in being able to be himself. This was years of pain pulled to the surface for Isobel to see- to remember. She realized that she didn’t know anything at all about them, had just taken the masks they’d handed her as fact.

“Please, Isobel.”

And for a moment she almost let go but the hand print felt cold on her skin, creeping and exceptional loneliness distilled into a fading fingerprint. “If the pollen dampens your powers we should be able to reverse engineer the chemistry to have the opposite effect,” she startled herself with the way the idea cracked like lightning over her brain. “We’ve been working the wrong way.” She looked between the two of them, feeling the electric thrill of hope. “We’ve been trying to turn you off, like draining a battery! What if-”

“Liz,” Michael started, taking a half step toward her. 

“We could find a way to boost your powers instead of dampening them!” She looked up and could feel the smile starting to break, the way her face was open and hopeful as she reached for Michael with her other hand. “We could save him.”

“Michael,” Isobel grated, voice low and rasping. And there was something shared between the two of them in the amber light- it felt liquid and powerful, pooling between them like purpose.

“I can’t lose anyone else, Iz.” Michael swallowed and she saw the tear run fast and hot over his cheek before he worked his jaw and swiped it away.

“Then let’s bring someone back!”

**

Michael moved Max to the back of his truck. He’d only puked once this time. Two miles over the uneven ground of the ravine in the dark, lit by the pale watery glow. He’d held him so carefully, brain pulled tight and scraped raw as his body shook with the effort. He tossed the blankets over the curve of the pod, watching Max float and twist like a compass needle to face up and stay carefully curled. He looked peaceful. He looked like he was resting. He packed Isobel and Liz into their cars, making sure Liz had the GPS coordinates for the mines before clambering into behind the wheel of his truck. The bench seat was cold and he could see his breath in the light of the moon. The sky was stunning this far out, a sea of stars that twirled. If he looked long enough he’d see one fall, burning bright and tracing a line from where it had started to where it burned out.

It took seconds.

He closed his eyes, gripping the steering wheel and ignored where his hat sat on the passenger seat, instead reaching for the space under the seat he’d dropped his phone, leaving it there in his terrified scramble to find Max.

The screen lit up and there was only one text.

{sms}Just let me know you’re safe, okay? 

Michael stared at the words in the dark, thumb sliding along the edge of his phone. He had to talk to Alex. He had to talk to him; he had made the first promise to him he’d ever broken. 

The Chevy was an ‘82 with a rebuilt engine and a busted U joint that creaked and wobbled when he pushed her past 55 mph. She had a bench seat and a crack in the vinyl of the dashboard that matched the odometer that he’d rolled at least once since he’d bought her for 250 bucks from Sanders when he was 14. He kept her neat and tidy, oil changed more often than necessary and spark plugs perfect. Her carburetor was clean and she smelled like old cold leather. She was home in a way that most places had never been. He’d never been able to get the blood out of the leather seat, so he covered it with a mexican blanket that made him sweat in the summers, but it was better than realizing she was the only thing left with his scars.

He set the phone down on the seat, tucking it into the crevice a little to keep it from sliding on a turn to clatter into the passenger side door. 

{sms}Just let me know you’re safe, okay? 

_He wasn’t_. He didn’t answer, because he couldn’t lie to Alex again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael jerked awake, shivering. He had his jacket half off, one of the sleeves tucked under his head where he’d curled up on the passenger seat, cramped into the corner by the window. He could see his breath, the tip of his nose numb and his fingers were stiff, but the leather seat was warm under the blanket, pliable from his body heat. He groaned, closing his eyes and blinking at the predawn light that was starting to blur edges of the dark. His airstream was just ahead, dark and closed up but the brushed metal starting to catch the ambient glow. 
> 
> He fell asleep in his truck again.

Michael jerked awake, shivering. He had his jacket half off, one of the sleeves tucked under his head where he’d curled up on the passenger seat, cramped into the corner by the window. He could see his breath, the tip of his nose numb and his fingers were stiff, but the leather seat was warm under the blanket, pliable from his body heat. He groaned, closing his eyes and blinking at the predawn light that was starting to blur edges of the dark. His airstream was just ahead, dark and closed up but the brushed metal starting to catch the ambient glow. 

He fell asleep in his truck again.

He wiped at his mouth, tasting sour and sick with a grimace. He could smell himself now, four days out from a shower and covered in dust and filth. His skin felt oily, hair matted and sticking to his neck in the back as he pushed up on one arm, forcing himself to unfold with a groan. He grabbed for the wheel- it was freezing under his palm as he pulled himself upright to exhale slowly. Michael set his forehead against his knuckles. “Fuck.”

The junkyard was quiet, he couldn't hear the way the metal creaked on metal; he couldn’t hear the usual clatter of hubcaps like the worst windchime. He could only hear his own thoughts, his breath, and his heartbeat. He’d managed to stay awake and moving for four and a half days- four and a half fraught days of adrenaline and heartbreak, over wrought and too sharp to look at without going blind. His head throbbed, a low dull ache that pulsed black behind his eyes. He didn’t want to stop moving. He didn’t want to sleep, because if he slept that meant he’d have to _wake up_ and this was all real. It wasn’t a dream.

His deep breath was wet and harsh, lungs expanding as he shoved at himself, poked and pushed at the sharp bits to tuck them away where he could think about it later and reached for the door. Michael Guerin spilled out of his truck like he was a liquid, stumbling and catching himself on the door while stamping his feet to get feeling in his boots again. He reached back in, snagging his phone and his hat in one hand before he hip checked the door closed. It’s a transitional moment, the silence and the noise coming together like a wave. He wobbled, still bone weary and aching somewhere deeper than that and started for the trailer. The last time he’d burst into his home Alex had been there. Alex had been _waiting_ for him in the dark, sitting on the edge of his bed. Alex lingered there in Michael’s mind like a ghost, haunting his home the same way he had for the last decade.

The airstream door was thankfully still unlocked and he slammed inside, dropping his coat where he stood and reaching back to snag his shirt and strip it off in one quick motion. He thought about simply tossing it back outside to throw away, but instead dropped it with his coat. His airstream had been tidied. There should have been a second shirt- crispy with blood ( _his blood_ ) draped over the kitchenette table littered with books and notations. He turned, glancing around and his bed was made, a shirt floating in soapy pink water in the small sink, and all his books stacked on the desk instead of scattered around his sheets. He gritted his teeth, but leaned against the counter to tug his boots off, flinching back from the damp socks and hooking out of them to wiggle and crack his toes. Belt was next, clattering loudly as he dropped his jeans and walked naked to the small shower stall.

 

It was tiny; the removable shower head more like taking a bath with a lawn hose than a real shower and he hissed into the initial push of cold water- frigid and painful before it starts to soothe warm. He had about twenty minutes and less time than that to get the blood out of his curls so he set to it, methodical and half asleep still. He never liked to linger, if he lingers in the slip of soap on his skin his mind...wandered. He didn’t have time for that today or the capacity for the guilt it brought. He couldn’t, because he knew whose voice he’ll hear cracking on his name and he’s been gutted enough today. He told his body to shut the fuck up and managed to make it out of the shower without hurting himself more.

It’s almost a first.

He wanted to put music on. He wanted to turn off all the lights and listen to something other than his own thoughts. He’s pretty sure that once he settled into the thin mattress that no matter how tired he was he’ll only see his mother’s face behind glass. He would only see the way Alex had ripped his heart out and handed it over to him twice. He would see the way Maria’s face had gone from confused to rage to something that couldn’t even _look_ at him. He’d see Max floating in the pod. He’d see Noah, teeth bloody and chest blackened and charred. He’d see Isobel and the way she always covered her mouth when she had to hide how scared she was. He’d see all the things he’d been working so hard and so diligently to avoid. He’d see the soft scuttle of sand over a body. He’d see Max and Isobel being gathered up and taken _away_. 

He never saw the hammer, just the way Alex had blood on his face as Jesse dragged him out of the shed with a fistful of black hair.

The built in tape deck sat happy and round over his kitchenette and he slapped one of the mixtapes he’d found at a thrift store in to press play. The speakers were tinny, but they were louder than his breath and he could focus on the simple chord progression, the mathematics turned into something like art.

Something like a smile he was sure he wouldn’t see again.

He dripped for a minute before finger combing conditioner through his curls and wrapping his head with an old t-shirt. He scrubbed himself dry with a thin white towel before dragging a pair of gray sweats on and twisting into a stolen t-shirt. He glanced at his bed, sucking his teeth before simply leaning back against his closet and digging into the mini fridge for a beer. He finished it in five long pulls, throat working before he tossed it in the trash and settled into the thin twin. It would have been too short for Max, but he fit decently enough.

The windows were starting to lighten and he knew he had a small window for sleep despite the newsprint he’d taped up to keep the sun out. It smelled like soap and he turned his head, blinking across the small space to the wood veneered closet where he’d pinned the different equations for Keppler’s Laws of Celestial Orbit, early drafts of possible propulsion engines, and a few diagrams of mirror molecules to the ones he’d managed to send through the spectrometer in the high school science lab from the pods when he was 12: phenyl-two-propanone was as close as he’d managed to map it, but the P2P only raised more questions after it had solved so many. 

He needed more data. Every time he’d needed to find some control it had been at the cost of pain. He’d assumed he was the typical deviation rate- that he was the error, but now? He ran a thumb over the raised scar tissue on his forearm before following the line to the back of his hand. He didn’t know it anymore, smooth and flexible without the mess of cartilage and bone twisted up and healed wrong. 

He _needed_ more data. The ship pieces still incomplete; the pollen samples waiting for further diagnostic. Noah dead. His mothe-

He needed _more_.

Alex had tidied his home. It was an absent sort of methodical and Michael reached over, tugging a note he’d taped to the closet door out from under the other more pressing problems. He blew out a breath and read it over again. It was single page he’d torn out of a library book when he was 19. He’d hissed sharply at the damage done, but it felt right. It felt right to have this one page from a book as damaged as he was with parts ripped out. One line was delineated: underlined twice, circled, and highlighted.

_A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt._

Yesterday, he’d been staring out the window, numb and clanging hollow with the echo of the self-destruct sirens still gummy in his ears. He’d slipped down the seat, resting his forehead against the thick bulletproof glass of the humvee, the cold air whipping around him, snatching bits of words and the frantic whispered conversation happening in the front seat. He didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He’d been so close. So _close_ to everything. Everything he’d ever wanted - a family of his very own - and she had stared back at him with love. He’d felt it- felt it bright and sweet and hot like honey in his heart for those few breaths- the breaths that stretched forward and back to cradle him in that motherly love. He’d had it and then Alex Manes’ father had smashed it just as surely as he’d smashed his hand. Master Sergeant Jesse Manes was a salt and burn campaign and Michael was so tired of being scorched earth. Kyle had been talking about the drives. Alex had been gritting out answers, eyes worried in the rearview, but Michael just sat silent and tried to find his way back to the memory of that perfect moment. It had been the same amber color as a sunset in fall. His mother was perfect. She had been _perfect_. 

“Not _now_ , Kyle!” Alex had finally cut him off with a curt slice of hand and Michael had closed his eyes.

“Take me back to my truck.” 

He’d closed the door, not turning around at the sound of his name and climbed into his Chevy, peeling out in a cloud of dust and sand. He’d left Alex and Kyle behind, rage making him colder than the air outside. He’d left them behind and hadn’t looked back. He’d left them with their bags full of information on Alien physiology and years of tortured research. He’d left them and now-

“Fuck.” Alex had the data he needed. Michael covered his face and exhaled a long slow breath. “ _Fuck_.”

**

Liz Ortecho was tip toeing up the back staircase like she was 16 again, feet light around the grimace as she made sure to skip the fourth step up and then walk near the wall, weight counter balanced by a tight grip on the hand rail. It was somewhere before dawn, the horizon pinking and starting to glow when she’d finally made it home. She touched the edge of the darkened candle under the picture of her sister before easing herself glacially down the hall, past the bathroom, the linen closet, and then gritting her teeth at the slow squeak of hinges as she pushed open the door to her room.

“Mija.” 

“Ay!” Liz dropped her purse, hearing a stick of lip gloss roll across the floor and whatever loose change splatter over the threshold. She covered her heart, glaring at him through the way it stuttered and pounded. “Papi! What are you doing up?” 

“Waiting for you.” Arturo shrugged, closing his eyes with a long sigh before easing up from the bed. He looked exhausted, rosary twisted around his scarred knuckles, knicked with a lifetime of knife work. He tilted his head, just looking at her for a long moment, eyes warm and sad and Liz had a whole moment where she thought she might cry. Instead, she hunkered down and started picking quarters up off the floor.

Arturo moved, knees cracking audibly as he settled down next to her to help. “You didn’t have to wait, Papi.”

She heard the shrug more than saw it, the clink of coins in his palm a steady rhythm. “I always wait up, now.” Liz glanced over, eyes welling and watched her father. He was getting older, a few darker age spots on the back of his hands and the deep creases of a life well laughed around his eyes, but there were dark circles hiding in the bags under his eyes and gray peppering further and deeper into his dark hair. He’d always been so large, solid and firm- an easy touchstone in her life, but now he was bent over and helping her pick up the pieces of her life. Again. “Just to make sure you come home, too.”

He glanced up at her and it’s there. It’s there on the surface- his grief a bright and palpable thing that just welled in his eyes and she couldn’t help the tears that track over her cheeks before she even realized she was crying. She knew the moment he tucked his own pain away, folded it up like a handkerchief to hand to her to dry her tears. “ _Papi._ ”

“No es nada,” his voice was scratchy, gruff and stuck in his throat, but he took her wrist, dropping the money into her palm before pulling her into a tight fierce hug. 

But it isn’t nothing and she knows it. She knows that he waited up for Rosa every time she stormed out the door into the night. She knows that he _waited_ up for her mother when she’d come home slinging insults slippery around a tongue thick with tequila. She knows he waited up to make sure she fell asleep, tucked into bed after the police came to tell them about the accident. He’d spent his life waiting for his girls to come _home_. Liz Ortecho had three degrees, she was incredibly impossibly smart, but at the end of the day she was sobbing against the flannel on his broad shoulders. 

Rosa was alive and her father was grieving, a man scared to lose the last thing that was important to him. He was sitting in his daughter’s room at night, counting rosary and praying to keep her safe. She’d been fighting for her life downstairs while he slept. She’d been stitched up clinging to the counter to not wake him. She’d been so reckless with the last precious thing he had in his life and she sobbed as he soothed her. Rosa was _alive_ and he didn’t know. She was going to collect clothes for her, bundle them up and pack them off to where she was hidden at the Pony with Maria, but her father would be sitting here, prepping for the breakfast rush and thinking his was a life of laughing around loss.

She grieved. Max was _gone_. Max who had smiled into her skin and shared the echoing love with her like warm water around her heart, ripples on ripples on ripples. Max was gone and she couldn’t catch her breath, clinging to her father. She clung to the one man in her life she could trust to be there for her. Arturo was mumbling soft nothings against her hair, petting her back and giving her comfort. She pulled back, face wet and messy with tears and he smiled at her before frowning darkly. “Mija, did that Evans boy hurt you?”

She coughed and shook her head at him, mouth twisting slightly between a smile and heartbreak. They looked so similar on the Ortecho’s faces. “No, Papi. It’s not that. Le amo. I _love_ him.”

“Oh, Mija,” he cupped her face, thumbs cleaning the tear tracks from her cheeks as he smiled at her, a warm care caught between them. “This is good, no?”

“Yes, Papi,” she breathed, smiling back. “It’s wonderful.”

He patted her cheek, blinking away the tears in his own eyes and smiled gamely at her. “Good. I don’t want to have to shoot the Sheriff.” He waggled his eyebrows. “The _Deputy_? Maybe.”

**

Kyle struggles out of a dream of a cave in, gasping for breath and sure that he’s going to die. He blinks awake and freezes. There’s a dog standing on his chest. There’s a dog on his chest and he’s really confused how it got into his condo. There’s a dog staring at him, wet cold nose brushing against his. Kyle struggles to wake up as the beagle stares down at him. Neither of them move; Kyle just holds the gaze until Alex’s dog licks him once and jumps down, pushing paws against his ribs, the bruise, his belly and somewhere far more important. He makes the most undignified noise, curling to try and decide what part of him is more affronted. Mostly his pride, he decides as he comes awake enough to realize he’d been sleeping on the couch in the cabin.

There’s a scramble of claws on hardwood and he glares after the wagging tail, before pushing to sit up and stare blankly at the coffee table covered in papers. He sucks his teeth, grimacing at the furry taste and frowns around the living room. He knows the guest bathroom is past the weird picture of a pastoral cow, tucked to the left of the front door near the office. The kitchen is to the right of the front door and he can hear the coffee brewing, the peppery sound of percolating burbling like a siren song. “Tell me that’s coffee!”

Alex responds, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t actually words, just a string of vowels and the triple tap of his gait. He’s stretching into a yawn and thinking about standing up when Alex comes around the corner, sleepy frown creasing his face and hair sticking up from where he’d slept on his pillow hard. He’s in gray Air Force sweats knotted under his right knee, crutches, and his glasses. Kyle rolls his eyes. “Still not a morning person, I see.”

“This is the dark time,” Alex mutters. “This is not morning.” He cocks his head toward the kitchen as a question and Kyle nods in reply before standing up and reaching his fingers for the ceiling in a long boned stretch. He rolls into a forward fold, picking a coarse white hair out of the carpet before hopping back into plank. “Fuck man, it’s too early for yoga.”

Kyle snorted. “Just bring me the coffee and fix your hair. You look like a disgruntled sparrow.”

Alex shakes one of his crutches at him with a grumpy face before turning back and swinging idly towards the kitchen. His dog, Wentz, makes a similar face of Beagle Disappointment at where Kyle started doing push-ups before trotting after him. Kyle has a very specific routine, drilled into him over the years of playing football. He knows what he needs to do to keep his body moving and to stay awake for the long hours in the OR. He knows that he feels better once he’s warmed his body up, pushing into the sing of blood moving into his muscles. He’s going to have to get out to his car to snag his sneakers for a morning run- already thinking about the long loop that follows the creek side to the cottonwood where they’d built the treehouse. He figures he can do a set of pull ups there if the rail hasn’t rotted through. “Dude!”

There’s a grunt from the kitchen, which means Alex is starting to wake up. Progress. 

“Do you actually have food here or are you doing the pining single guy thing?”

Alex pops his head around the small wall that keeps the refrigerator separate from the main living room and glares at him. “There’s _food_.” He leans back and Kyle hears him grabbing a jug of juice from the door before his black haired head pops back out. “And I’m not pining.”

Kyle huffs a laugh and speeds up slightly, working into the sing of blood under his skin. “Right. Sure. How’s that working out for you?” He pauses at the top of a push and tilts his head at where Alex is studiously not looking at him as he sets out the OJ. “Not pining?”

Alex throws him a flat look, knuckling his glasses back up his nose before just waving a general hand. “Well, funny you should ask,” he starts, eyebrows going sarcastic. Kyle had never known eyebrows could be sarcastic until he met Alex. “My Dad is in a coma in my murder basement. My boyfriend? Fuck buddy? Love of my life? Is a goddamn alien and the last time I saw him he was covered in blood and darting out into a dramatic storm full of lightning? Also? You, my dubious best friend mortal enemy, was shot? And helped me move a body into a murder basement?” He pauses, pointing the tip of a crutch at the vault door to the bunker. “Did I mention the murder basement, because what is my life?”

Kyle laughed. “You may have mentioned it, yes.” He paused, grinning crookedly. “I’m your best friend?”

“Okay, that’s your take away? Stop being fucking athletic gay porn and come eat.”

“So bossy,” Kyle grinned, tucking his feet up and rolling to stand. He shook himself out, pulling an arm across his chest to stretch his shoulder. “You got an extra toothbrush? My teeth are fuzzy.”

“Guest bathroom under the sink to the right, should be an extra.” 

“Cool.” He pulled the opposite arm, rolling his head on his shoulders while dropping to tuck into the cabinet, fishing out the toothbrush still in the packet. It was one of the good kind with the cross hatched bristles and the fancy tongue scrubber on the back. There was some deodorant down there as well, but he had some in his gym bag and he wasn’t sure he was ready to smell like Alex Manes. He hadn’t worn Old Spice since he was 14 anyway. He popped the toothbrush in his mouth, wandering back out and into the kitchen as he idly brushed, watching Alex make scrambled eggs with a fork in a pan. He reached past him to grab a piece of bacon from the other skillet. He had a moment of confusion, toothpaste in his mouth and hot bacon in hand, before scrubbing his teeth faster and moving to drop the strip on one of the empty plates set out on the kitchenette.

He spit in the sink, rinsing the brush and ducking to cup some water into his mouth, swishing before spitting again. “Do we have a plan? Because I need to scrub in for a whipple this morning and your Dad isn’t going anywhere.”

“I need to start decrypting the drives. I’m sure there’s more information there and-” He paused, ducking his head and running a hand through his hair. “Fuck, it’s Monday. I have to report in before 0900.”

“I had to use a PTO day to get coverage yesterday. Most of my surgeries were pushed to today, so I’m going to be out until at least Wednesday unless you come to the hospital.” He plopped down in the chair, finally eating the bacon with a happy groan. “Don’t come to the hospital. It was bad enough with Liz and the shooters. I don’t want any of my patients put in danger. Plus, I really don’t need Max ‘Look at How Tall I Am’ Evans mooning around again.” There was a whine and he looked down into pitiful brown eyes that were searching for kindness in his soul-- or just begging for bacon. “No. It’s bad for you,” he told Wentz, popping the last of the bacon into his own mouth. Wentz looked betrayed and went to sit next to Alex, glaring at Kyle before turning hopeful eyes up. Alex dropped him a bit of egg. “You’re going to make him fat.”

“He runs more than is humanly possible. He’ll get fat later.” Alex pointed to the coffee maker. “Get your own cup. Cream and sugar for me.”

“I remember.” Kyle got to his feet, starting for the counter with the coffee maker. He poured himself a cup, snagging Alex’s mug from the cupboard. “Do you thi-”

They both turned at a knock on the door. Kyle made a face, pointing at himself then to Alex like he was counting as Wentz lost his shit. The beagle bolted, barking a half howl and scrambled to the door to yell indiscriminately at the porch. “Uh?”

Alex made a confused face, turning toward the door as he cut the heat off on the burner. “I have-?”

Kyle squared his jaw, grabbing the coffee and pouring himself a cup before moving to the door. He heard the sharp two trilled whistle that had Wentz sitting quickly and snapping to attention. Kyle was impressed even as he opened the door, taking a sip of coffee before looking out to the porch. 

“Alex! I-” Michael Guerin cut off, pulling up short and staring at where Kyle gave him a cheery smile around his second sip of coffee for the day. 

“Morning.”

“Uh.” Michael looked back over his shoulder, like he was checking for cars before turning a glare back at Kyle. “I thought?”

“He’s making breakfast.” Kyle shouldn’t enjoy the way it felt like twisting a knife, but he wasn’t past petty quite yet. Michael always went hot with anger, it was like poking a fire with a stick. He didn’t miss the way one of the porch posts creaked ominously. “Alex?” He called back. “It’s for you.”

Alex popped his head out, blinking at where Michael was standing before pulling up as straight as he could in crutches and slept in sweats. He blinked, swiping at where his hair was still sticking up in the back absently. “Guerin?”

“Is this a bad time?”

**

The Evans-Bracken household was the epicenter of controlled chaos. The foyer was rearranged, the drawer dumped into the bowl that sat to hold keys just inside the doorway. The rug was rolled up and propped against the wall with the pictures pulled down and faced inward. The living room was mostly the same with the couch shoved closer to the front door and then back again, lines in the plush carpet showing it’s travels. The pictures were also down, facing the ground next to a short line of pottery of various shapes and sizes. The cut flowers were in the trash at the curb. The kitchen was hemorrhaging tupperware, every cabinet door open and drawer pulled. The dishwasher hummed and chugged, steam curling to disappear. The refrigerator doors’ magnetic calendar had been wiped clean of all commitments. Isobel Evans was wrist deep in soapy water, frowning darkly down at the crisper drawer. The chaos seemed to stop there, hovering at the edge of the guest room and threatening the master.

Isobel couldn’t sleep, every time she closed her eyes she saw Noah in her mind. She saw him with that black look, malevolent and manipulative. She saw him on his back with the branching lightning flash-burned into his chest and wet with rain. She saw the smile he would give her in the mornings, soft and sacred like a promise. She saw the way his head would tip back, hair catching on the pillow when she slung a leg over his hips and _moved_. She saw Noah in the dark. 

So, she was cleaning. There was oven cleaner foaming inside the double range tucked under the island and she had the tupperware sprawled across the top to sort into neat piles by size. She was cleaning the bottom crisper drawer while she waited. She would have to donate Noah’s clothes. She frowned, biting back the way her lip wobbled, throat going tight at the thought and scrubbed harder. Towards the back of the house the laundry was rolling in a regular thumping rhythm. She had plans for the bathroom, but would have to sort through the bedroom first. She’d channel her inner Marie Kondo.

“Does _this_ spark joy, _bitch_?” She frowned darkly at the soap suds, elbow aching at the effort. 

She daydreamed of a bonfire. She thought about how the blue sweater, the one that had a hole in the shoulder she’d always meant to have darned, would curl and smoke. She dreamed of the fire pit in the back piled high with the false memory of a murderer. She wouldn’t think about the way his fingers had touched her so soft, so sweet, just inside the hem of her dress when they’d kissed.

Isobel had almost grabbed Michael by the wrist after they’d settled Max in the mines, desperate for someone to come home with her. They’d been up for another three hours, coated in silver. Liz and Michael talking in sciency words she knew were words, but didn’t pay attention to, eyes on where Max floated. They’d slipped the pod inside another pod, layering him safe and hazy. She couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear Max and the world felt so cold, like the sun had turned off. She hated the silence, the empty yawning spaces between breaths. Max was gone. Noah was gone. Michael had tossed one last look behind him, eyes red rimmed and sleep bruised, before stumbling to his truck and peeling out. She’d been left in the deep dark of night, the stars starting to shine from behind the breaking storm clouds. Liz had looked at her, nodding once and started for her car, ever the pragmatist. Isobel wanted to curl around Max and sleep and sleep and sleep until he woke up. She wanted to not be _here_ , to not be here in this empty house and empty life. She was alone.

She was alone and it crawled down her spine to prickle angrily across her palms. “That’s so sad. Alexa, play Despacito.”

_Playing Des-_

“Alexa, stop. No, _fuck_.” She closed her eyes and ducked her head. She wouldn’t cry over him. She wouldn’t cry over him. She wouldn-

She was crying in her kitchen, soft broken sobs as she straightened her arms in the soapy water and leaned forward to keep herself upright as she broke.

The dryer alarm buzzed, echoing through the space. The laundry followed five minutes after, chugging to a stop and beeping a little melody of completion. The water was going cold, her fingertips wrinkled and white under the surface. The tupperware wasn’t going anywhere, sorted into red, blue, and green lids. Noah’s clothes were folded and put away in his drawers. His suits hanging in neat color coordinated lines in his closet. She would have to pick up his dry cleaning at some point. She would have to put everything away. She would have to pack up this life and put it in a box on the curb for pickup.

She swiped her face against her shoulder, shaking out her hands and reaching for the dishtowel when her phone started rattling on the marble countertop.

Anne Evans’ picture lit up the screen. It was the two of them, laughing somewhere outside of the Grand Canyon, hair whipped around them in the wind as Isobel made a face at the camera. Her Mom was calling and she shouldn’t answer, but it was her _Mom_. She snatched it from where it was starting a slow angry circle on the polished counter, thumbing to answer on a quick sob. 

“ _Mom_ -” 

“Izzy?” Her mom’s voice clicked instantly to concerned on the second syllable, the wind breaking over the speaker and faraway like she had her patched into her bluetooth and was talking at the ceiling of her SUV. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she managed, coughing and pulling in a little. She took a slow breath, looking around. There was no simple way to explain what had happened. She couldn’t just- “Noah left me.”

There was a pause, the squeal of tires, and then her mom said simply, “I’m on my way.”

**

“So then I told her she would die of Syphilis.”

Rosa’s laugh echoed for a moment as Liz stood in the doorway, bag of clothes over her shoulder, and closed her eyes listening to the sound. It crashed over her, bright and electric- the same volume and tenor as everything Rosa had ever done. “You did _not._ ”

“I _did_.” Maria’s voice caught in her throat when she was holding smoke in her lungs. Liz didn’t turn the corner, always feeling like the awkward younger sister when Maria and Rosa were together. They caught on each other and flared bright, cool and centered in a way that always made her a little jealous. Rosa and Maria were always the cool kids. They didn’t know it. They’d walk down the halls in high school, laughing and screaming at each other outside of the science labs. She’d hear them before she’d see them. Their voices echoed off the walls and splashed up from the tiled floors. They deafened the clang of lockers and the muttered roar of everyone slipping back into the halls. People parted for them. Liz had always shoved her way through the crowd until Kyle chose her.

The overhead fluorescents were still off, just the bar lights- blue behind the bar, green over the pool tables, and soft amber yellows everywhere else. The jukebox was playing Alanis Morissette and Liz wanted to cry, heart over full and lungs tight as she listened to them laugh and bicker, punctuated by the occasional clack of pool balls slapping together and bouncing off the bumpers. She wanted to cry and just stay here in the hallway, head down, and listen to them. They’d picked up right where they’d left off, perfect fitting puzzle pieces that even death and resurrection couldn’t change.

“I know you’re there, Liz,” Maria’s voice sing songed from deeper inside the bar. 

“Can’t hide from a psychic,” Rosa called.

She sighed, wiping at her eyes and plastered on a smile, stepping around the corner and into the Pony proper. Rosa was laying on her back on the far pool table, one knee up and tipping her head back to smile at Liz. Maria was sitting on the edge, bouncing pool balls into the pockets and hitting a joint. She had one arm back, leaning so that they were only lightly tangled, just fingertips brushing at the inside of Rosa’s arm where it was flailed to the side. It was so familiar and nostalgic- these two touching and linked that Liz just stared. Maria grinned at her, tipping the joint in her direction with a quick quirk of eyebrow. Rosa just waggled her fingers and dropped back to bat at the next ball that rolled away. Liz waved back, dropping the bag of clothes and smiling at them. 

“We have decided to ignore current events-,” Maria explained, gesturing around the bar with the lit joint.

“-and be bitchy,” Rosa finished, always in synch.

Liz nodded once. “I brought you clothes.”

“Gimme.”

“It can wait a second,” she replied, moving and taking a short hop step to push up onto the pool table with them, enjoying the happy bright noise the other two girls made before she flopped with her head on Rosa’s stomach and her back against Maria’s hip. She closed her eyes, listening to the gurgling noises of Rosa’s stomach and tried not to think about the fact that her sister smelled like _Max_. She exhaled, holding up her hand, noting with satisfaction that Maria knew and just set the joint in her fingers. She rolled onto her back, watching the light shift from the splay of the jukebox display. “This is more important.”

“Yass gurl.” Maria nodded, picking up the bottle of tequila and swigging loudly before setting it back on the felted slate with a thunk.

“Alex should be here,” Rosa said, huffing a breath.

“Yeah,” Maria agreed, voice going tight as she snatched the bottle back up. “He _should_. Does he know about-”

“We are ignoring that, remember,” Liz stated, taking a hit and holding the peppery weed smoke in her lungs. 

“Oh, he _knows_.” Liz almost missed the way Maria’s head whips around, blinking down at Rosa.

Rosa looked between them and then frowned. “What, the kissing guy in the _museum_?”

“He _told_ you?”

“I did say I’d take it to my grave.” Rosa shrugged. “Hadn’t meant to be so literal.”

“Oh my _GOD_.” Maria took another swig of tequila, looking incandescent with rage for a moment before it just tucked tightly back into a small sharp smile. “Of course he did.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Rosa singsonged. “You’re still my best friend. He just likes me better.”

“You have no idea,” Maria sighed, taking the joint back from Liz. She exhaled. “I slept with Guerin.”

“You _what_?” Rosa pushed up on straight arms, mouth dropped open, and eyes wide with disbelief. “He smells like a river!”

“He got hot!”

“No way.” She looked over at Liz. Liz shrugged and hand waved vaguely. “Oh wow. _Wow_. I die and you guys all lose your damn minds.”

“True.” Liz nodded, enjoying the familiar feel of familial bickering. “You were the glue.”

“That’s a terrifying thought.”

“Can we go back to the drinking and getting stoned portion of the evening?” Maria sagged, dropping loose and pathetic before looking back at the Ortecho sisters, eyes pleading. Rosa’s mouth snapped shut and she caught Liz’s eyes before nodding once. 

“Yeah, babe.” The silence settled between one breath and the next, the song changing over from You Learn to Ironic and Liz slapped her hand over her mouth, eyes going wide as she choked on the way the universe just served up the perfect moment. She watched Maria start to smile, shaking her head as she leaned back to put her head on Rosa’s thighs, starting to sing along. Rosa dropped back to the felt and joined her. 

Liz gave in and belted out the chorus with them. She’d play pretend for a little while; she’d let the Pony be a moment in time where the world seemed so far away.

**

Michael Guerin was on his porch and he hadn’t had a cup of fucking coffee yet. Of course. Of _course_ , he shows up when Alex was unprepared and still half asleep. Of course, he shows up when Alex didn’t even have his prosthetic on and had shelled out of his leather jacket and perfectly curated burgundy sweater. Of course, Alex had sleep lines on his face, cowlicks for days, and his glasses on. Michael Guerin didn’t make anything easy or convenient and Alex didn’t know why he’d ever thought Michael would start now.

“Let him in, Kyle,” Alex managed, voice deceptively calm around the way his chest had gone tight. He wished he was wearing a shirt. Why wasn’t he wearing a _shirt_? He needed layers between his skin and Michael. He needed something to keep him from prickling so intensely in his direction, like iron shavings pulled to a magnet- a little at a time then all at once. He swallowed, turning back to the kitchen- taking a slow deep breath around wide eyes and centered himself.

“Yeah, _Kyle_.” 

Alex tilted his head up, closing his eyes around the small _lord help me_ head shake. He sighed, swinging into the kitchen and tapping into an easy three point stance. He leaned a little before pulling up, weight pressed into his palms.

“Babe, I’m going to take off for work, okay?” Kyle called and Alex had the distinct moment of wanting to _murder_ him as he watched the way Michael’s head whipped around, a few pictures rattling on the walls like someone had run past, knocking them all crooked. Kyle grinned, cheeky and uncaring as he hopped down off the porch and started across the gravel to where he was parked behind the shed. 

And then they were alone.

The door closed behind Michael as Wentz came and sniffed around his boots, loud and hyper focused on understanding something new. Alex swallowed and tried not to fidget on the other side of the kitchen table as Michael shoved his hands into the pockets of his low slung jeans and stared at him. There were so many words between them now. Words and words and words and Alex just swallowed again, tilting his head slightly and Michael’s mouth dropped open a little like he was going to speak then closed just as fast. The silence stretched between them, elongating into something tense and solid, a wall of silence and _intent_. Alex flicked his brows up, wetting his lips and tried not to stare when Michael unconsciously wet his in return. It was instinctive and defensive. He needed to know where Guerin’s mouth was. He needed time to prepare. 

“There’s bacon?” He shifted, adjusting the crutches in tick tock time and gave Michael a quick smile.

Michael just watched him and Alex was stuck, both hands holding himself up and the table between them. He ducked his head, looking at the where the bottle of orange juice was sweating in the morning light, condensation puddling on the polished wood. Wentz whined low and sat next to his ankle, leaning his weight a little and Alex snapped back to himself. “I’m glad you’re okay?”

He’d fallen asleep with his phone tucked under his collarbone, face first into his pillow with fingers curled around it in case it vibrated in the night. He’d slept a solid seven hours with no text. Michael still didn’t speak, just watched him with those wide sad eyes, gone golden in the dawn light smearing into the kitchen, only to tangle in his curls. Michael shrugged and wet his lips, looking down quickly, breaking eye contact and then looking to the side, up and then circling inevitably back to Alex. 

“I’m really not.” His voice sounded small, one of those quiet confessions of truth that always hit just under Alex’s ribs. “Okay.”

“You don’t have to be,” he answered, wetting his lips and thinking visibly about coming around the table, but staying safely on the opposite side instead. 

Michael gave him one of those broken smiles like he was handing him a gift instead of something that hurt. “I need your help.”

Alex blinked, ducking his head and closed his eyes. He could feel the weight of this _thing_ between them. He could feel it and it burned. “Anything.” 

He meant, _everything_.

**

Kyle Valenti made it all the way to work at the hospital without anything going wildly horribly wrong. He’d showered, shaved, and changed into comfortable scrubs. His white coat soft with washes. He felt secure here, sure of his place in the world. There were no shady government conspiracies. There were no dead half sisters and father’s murdered by intergalactic chemical warfare. There were no explosions and dead mothers. There were no Aliens. There was nothing here but the task he loved most: _helping_ people.

He had scrubbed out of the whipple, watching the soap rinse down the drain. He thought about the OR, the amount of people it took to work through something as routine as the procedure he’d just completed. He thought about the number of people who stood around the one problem, each offering their specific knowledge to solve it and groaned.

“Shit.” He ducked out of the OR and down the hall, winking at Nurse Gough and pushing into the on call room. He locked it behind him and pulled out his phone. It took a minute of searching before he had the group text ready.

{Group sms} Listen up asshats. This is getting stupid. We’re going to need to work together on this.  
{Group sms} Meet at the Crashdown thursday?

There was a pause, and Kyle watched the delivered notification pop up, a few bubbles of return texts. 

{Liz sms} I’m adding Maria to this text.

Kyle’s eyebrows shot up.

{Isobel sms} New phone, who dis?  
{Kyle sms} Funny, Isobel. It’s Kyle. I’ve looped Alex in. He’ll get Michael in on it.  
{Alex sms} on it

There’s another long pause and he watches the dots all pop up and disappear like people were rethinking what they’d been about to send.

{Maria sms} Make it the Pony. We’re going to need some Tequila.  
{Liz sms} Kyle, there’s more you need to know.  
{Isobel sms} Is there anyone who doesn’t know anymore??  
{Alex sms} ...  
{Michael sms} ...  
{Liz sms} ...

Kyle left them on read and added the appointment to his calendar. Wild Pony after Ranchero night it was. He wasn’t sure when he’d become the responsible one, but he figured it must have been around year two of Med School.

“Be a Doctor they said. It’ll be worth it they said.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt._  
>  -Ursula K Le Guin


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex Manes stood outside the double wood door of the Wild Pony and stared at the sign taped to the grain. Maria’s neat looping handwriting scrawled in thick permanent marker: CLOSED FOR REVELATIONS.
> 
> He looked behind him, counting the cars in the parking lot, noting the way his chest went tight at the sight of a battered blue Chevy. Isobel’s sleek Audi was tucked shoulder to shoulder with maria’s yellow Volvo station wagon. He didn’t recognize the Toyota, taking a moment to infer that it must be Liz when he saw Kyle’s BMW. Alex was clearly the last to arrive. He hadn’t wanted to come.

Alex Manes stood outside the double wood door of the Wild Pony and stared at the sign taped to the grain. Maria’s neat looping handwriting scrawled in thick permanent marker: CLOSED FOR REVELATIONS.

He looked behind him, counting the cars in the parking lot, noting the way his chest went tight at the sight of a battered blue Chevy. Isobel’s sleek Audi was tucked shoulder to shoulder with maria’s yellow Volvo station wagon. He didn’t recognize the Toyota, taking a moment to infer that it must be Liz when he saw Kyle’s BMW. Alex was clearly the last to arrive. He hadn’t wanted to come.

He knocked on the door, listening to the clatter behind the wood and forcing himself to not take a step back when Maria opened the door- her eyes going wide as she saw him. She pulled up straight, mouth dropping open even as he closed his, biting back the black feeling that curled just under his ribs like a snake shifting in the sun. 

“Oh, um, yeah, hi.” She gave him a weak smile and it hurt, this uncertainty that was between them now.

He tilted his head and blinked at her once, wetting his lips and keeping himself ramrod straight. He ignored the urge to tuck his hands at the small of his back, folded into informal parade rest. She wasn’t his superior, but he was no longer sure if she was his friend. She closed her mouth, jaw working and she tilted her head down and to the side, eyes a little distant. 

“Don’t do that. Don’t read me.”

She smeared a smile over the way her mouth wobbled, chin crumpling a little before she nodded and looked up. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I didn-” he stopped himself, closing his eyes and exhaling a slow careful breath. “I’m not here _for me_.”

Her eyes go wide like he’s slapped her and it shouldn’t feel good. But he knew he used words like a scalpel, sharp and precise. “Right. Of course you aren’t.” She was shaking a little and he fought with himself, fought the two decades old urge to reach out and grab her by the back of the head and offer comfort. The old Alex, the one who died with the sound of a hammer on bone in his ears and his heart, would have tucked her against him. He knew what it felt like to fuck up. He knew what it was like, better than _anyone_ , to want someone you shouldn’t. And then _she_ had known it too and she had kissed Michael anyway.

“I kissed Maria.” Michael hadn’t held back, just kept the blows coming and Alex was so tired of being kicked by the people he should be loved by. He’d sat quickly at the kitchen table, skin flinching slightly from the cold wood against his bare back. His right ankle ached and he had dimly recognized that was _wrong_ and impossible, but it was better than being gutted at breakfast by his best friend. 

“So,” he’d managed to find the words, staring at the table where the bacon was sitting in a little bit of grease and the eggs were going cold. “Are you and she?”

“I don’t know, Alex.” Michael started to come closer. 

“Stop. Don’t.” Alex’s jaw locked, eyes flashing and he could feel the way the force of his anger hit Michael like a wall. “Don’t you _dare_.” He stopped, running a hand through his hair and blew out a long shaking breath like his therapist had taught him when the world seemed like it was going to swallow him with noise and pain. He tapped his fingers against the table, insistent tapping tempo of betrayal and _fear_. Michael froze, tucking his hands over the back of the opposite chair and Alex couldn’t catch his breath. “Am I supposed to be _happy_ for you?”

Michael flinched, but stayed quiet. 

Of course Maria went to Michael, he was beautiful. He was beautiful in a way that didn’t seem possible and of course he wasn’t from here. _Of course_ , he was from somewhere so exotic, it was cosmic. Of course he was. And Alex turned his eyes up, watching the way his vision went a little watery with tears and he hated that he was still so fragile. Alex was supposed to be strong now. What was the point of winning battles if he lost the whole _war_? 

“I don’t know what we’re doing, Alex.”

There it was. The closest to the truth they’d ever managed when there weren’t sirens forcing them to scream everything that needed to be said. The truth fell onto the table and Alex wished he could simply pick the words up like blocks and rearrange them into something that would make things work. They were like magnets, him and Michael, pushed far apart by their stubbornness and the need to protect each other. He had hoped one of them would flip course by now, would flip and then they could come together and hold tight forever. “I thought I was loving you?” And his eyes went wide, the words out before he could stop them and he covered his mouth and started trembling.

“Past tense?”

“Guerin-,” he cut off as his phone lit up, alarm going off to remind him that he had to be dressed and out the door by now. The reminder scrolling across the screen as it jangled a happy melody that Alex _hated_. “God damn it.” He looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes, feeling one tear slip over his temple, hot as blood before soaking into his hair. “Go home, Guerin.”

Michael’s eyes went wide and panicked before he just pushed around the table and dropped next to Alex, staring at him like he was drowning. “Please talk to me, Alex.” He paused, reaching out and Alex had to lean back to keep from leaning into it, from grabbing onto Michael and marking him up, fingerprints and teeth marks on his jaw, his skin. Angry and possessive. “ _Please._ ”

“This is a lot, Guerin,” he whispered, wetting his lips. “It’s _so much_.”

“Too much?” And Michael was whispering, eyes urgent and pleading even as he visibly restrained himself.

Alex didn’t have an answer but his name. He could see what could happen. He could just reach out and push his fingers in Michael’s curls. He could and Michael would shake into it, ducking as his eyes closed and they would break again and fuck again and break again and fuck again. Alex would be picking up broken plates from the floor after he was spent, breathing hard and come dumb as Michael lolled satiated and spent on his kitchen table. They would still be broken, slicing each other with the sharp edges of their pieces. They would bleed out from a thousand little cuts. So, he stayed silent and simply shook his head, a brief twitch as his jaw worked. 

He watched Michael’s jaw go stubborn, nose crinkling up when he was about to do something stupid and brave. Alex grabbed for his wrist, fingers against his pulse as he paused him. He shook his head, keeping this thing between them quiet again, subsuming the weight of it like tectonic subduction, molten and changing the whole world. “But I need you to go home, right now. I need to process this. I need the space. Please.” He blew out a breath. “Go home.”

Michael left this time. Michael left _him_. Alex had scraped himself back together, putting the shattered pieces of his heart back into his chest and pulling his prosthetic on the shattered piece of his leg. He made it to his desk on base, trying to stay focused on the paperwork that was piled next to his post. He tried to focus on the mundanity of taking orders and giving them. He tried, but he kept staring out the window and flinching away from his mind offering up the image of Michael’s mouth on Maria’s, of him _moving in her_ the way he was su-

Now she was standing in front of him looking guilty and determined. He swallowed and he was so _angry_. Worse, he was jealous. He was jealous that she could just kiss him and it didn’t break her like it broke him. He was jealous that they could touch and no one would care. No one would take a hammer and shatter her life for this. She was beautiful and he understood how Michael could love her. She was his friend; he had loved her too. He’d known her _first_.

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and nodded, squaring up and watching him like she understood and that hurt too. “I’m still glad you’re here.”

He didn’t answer, ducking his head and ducked inside, brushing past her and into the dark. The Wild Pony was put away for the night, the christmas lights wrapped around the poles turned off, but the neon still on. It was a fight of blue neon, amber lights over the tables, and green over the pool tables. He saw Michael there, first, just his shoulders and the back of his head as he reached over the bar to fish out the bottle of bourbon that was his favorite. It was so familiar it tasted like mundanity. Isobel was sitting on a high stool next to him, shoulder brushing his side as he moved. Liz was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed over her chest as she nodded at him, gaze determined. He couldn’t see Kyle, but none of it mattered when his eyes caught on the girl sitting on the edge of the pool table, kicking her feet, and giving him a little wave of fingers. She grinned like she was enjoying this and Alex jerked to a stop, staring at her, stunned into paralysis. He was gutted by confusion and impossibility of her presence; he was wildly unprepared.

“Rosa?”

“What’s up, bitch? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Still not fucking funny,” Kyle’s voice yelled from the hall.

“I think it’s fucking funny,” Rosa muttered, rolling her eyes and Alex simply exhaled as the world seemed to just... stop.

**

Kyle had a big little sister who was a ghost and also just casually sitting on the edge of a pool table snapping her gum. She had always been breezy, wandering in and taking what she wanted and leaving so little air left for those around her. He’d gotten used to the way she’d narrow her eyes at him over Liz’s shoulder at the Crashdown, pantomiming a throat cut and widening her eyes. He’d always just tilted his head, concerned about the violent tendencies of the Ortecho family before just threading his fingers with Liz’s and scooting her closer in the booth. Then she’d died and Liz had cracked right down the middle and left him surrounded by funeral flowers and Michigan blue. 

There was something surreal about losing someone who was almost family. It didn't feel fair to grieve. It didn’t feel fair to steal parts of her for himself, so he’d left her in memoriam and gone North. Now she was sitting on the pool table, grinning at where Alex was obviously stuttering through the emotional work of reconciling with her resurrection. He got it. It was a mind fuck, but he was grateful. Kyle was blessed with second chances.

“Breathe, bro,” he muttered, crossing the room and ducking into Alex’s line of sight, catching the helpless look before his friend pulled everything in and squared it away in his mind with tight corners. “There we go.” He nodded, eyebrows up and face open as he squeezed Alex’s shoulder and looked around the group. “That’s everyone, right? No more surprise zombies?”

“Hey!” Rosa was indignant as Isobel shrugged. 

“Not unless anyone else wants to come back from the dead today,” Isobel Evans drawled, long thighs crossed at the knee and dangling a heel indolently. It was a cultivated boredom and Kyle appreciated it for the art it was before wetting his lips and pointing at Rosa.

“I think she’s it.” He glanced around. “She’s it, right?”

Michael looked aggrieved as he settled into the stool next to Isobel. He waved a hand, uncorking the good bourbon and taking a swig directly from the bottle. “Max is dead, so, yeah.” His voice was painfully sarcastic, sharp as he flung the words at Kyle. “She’s _it_.”

“What?” Kyle turned to Liz, eyes wide as her lips thinned and she hugged herself tighter. Maria took a half step closer to her, hand on her arm.

“He’s in stasis,” she corrected in a small voice. “He brought Rosa back, but it had a price.”

“That’s a word for it,” Isobel snatched the bottle from Michael and shook her head.

“Wait, so where’s Max now?” Alex asked, pulling himself together as he looked away from where he’d been staring at Rosa. Kyle couldn’t even make fun of the way he immediately looked to Guerin. They locked eyes across the room and this was going to be harder than Kyle had thought. 

“Guys!” He clapped his hands together and everyone looked at him. “I’m getting a fucking whiteboard before I get a migraine. This shit is complicated.”

“And they say I’m the genius.”

“Shut it, Guerin.” And Kyle’s eyebrows shot up at the belligerence in Alex’s voice, frowning before seeing the guilty look that crossed Maria’s face and the way Michael looked down sharply. 

“Okay?” Kyle wet his lips, swallowing and holding his hands out carefully, like he was gentling the group back into being reasonable.

“Sorry,” Alex blew out a breath, glancing up at Michael and then away as if it hurt. “That was out of line.”

“Whatever.” Michael handed the bottle to Isobel and pulled nail polish remover out of his jacket, rolling the cap quickly and slugging it like it was moonshine.

“Well, _that’s_ fucked up.” Kyle closed his eyes and tried to focus.

“Alien,” Michael exhaled and tilted his head back. “Get your white board. It’ll help. I’m tired of secrets.”

Maria started laughing, covering her mouth and looking wide eyed around the group before coughing and nodding a few times. “That wasn’t funny. Right.”

“Wow, you guys are way more fucked up than I thought,” Rosa said into the following silence. “You really did fall apart without me.”

“We did,” Alex agreed, voice a quiet sort of broken that drew everyone’s eyes. “You died and it broke everything.” He shrugged, tight and small, compact and understated as he gave her a small little smile that _hurt_ to look at. 

“What the fuck happened at breakfast dudes?”

Isobel snapped a few times, imperious and angry. “Fucking focus.” She glared prettily. “I’m here for one thing. We need to bring Max _back_.” 

“There’s more,” Alex answered.

“There’s _always_ more,” Isobel replied, pushing to stand and settling her hands on her hips. She turned, holding everyone’s gaze until she had everyone looking at her. Michael waved a hand, deferring to her. She inhaled and cracked her neck like a boxer before opening her eyes and pointing at Rosa. “She can stay at Max’s house. No one is there and no one is going there but us. It’s in the middle of nowhere, so less chance of being seen.”

“It’s being surveilled, actually,” Alex’s voice was mild and Kyle watched the way Michael Guerin threw his entire body into the non verbal *of course it is* eyeroll. 

“It’s what?” Isobel blinked a few times, eyebrows going up.

“My father and Kyle’s father were a part of something called Project Shepherd.”

“Our childhood evisceration nightmare?” Michael cut in, tilting his head to hold Isobel’s gaze. “It was his family.”

“Your Da-”

“Wanted to catch you and cage you and cut you up.” Alex wet his lips. “Yes.” He tilts his head and holds Isobel’s gaze, unflinching. She looks between him and Michael before touching her fingers to her mouth and then looks at Maria.

“I had no idea.” Maria finally says into the strained silence. “I thought my Mom was just Roswell crazy, talking about Aliens.”

“I knew about Aliens!” Rosa lights up, tossing a hand into the air like she’s answering a question a teacher has posed. 

“You did?” Kyle and Liz both look at her. 

“Yeah, Isobel told me.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“Sure,” Rosa rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure you totally wanted to hit this and then went all psycho murder monster.”

“That was my husband.”

Kyle felt like Maria was going to get whiplash the way her head snapped around. “Wait, Noah?”

“Noah was an alien, too. He tried to murder us all and Max stopped him.” Michael wet his lips and touched his neck. “He stabbed me?”

“That _was_ your blood,” Alex sounds accusatory. Michael looks at him and there’s this tense silence before he shrugs.

“Yeah, not the first time you’ve seen me covered in blood.”

“No,” Alex pointed at him. “Don’t joke about that.”

Michael held a hand up and it was unscarred, fingers wiggling into the heavy silence. “It’s gone now. Like it never happened.”

Alex reared back, blinking and sat down in the booth, rubbing at his right knee.

“Context guys,”Kyle managed. “I really need some context.”

“That would be nice,” Maria agreed, walking to where Isobel was standing and taking the bottle of bourbon from her with a sharp angry smile and took a long swallow before holding it out to the rest of the humans. Liz took it from her without hesitation.

Michael rubbed his face, eyes closed on a deep long sigh before running his hands back through his curls, leaving them a mess haloing around his head. “His Dad caught us in highschool and-”

“He’s a _monster_. He took a hammer to him.” Kyle recognized the flat blank tone of trauma and watched Alex with a sudden understanding. “ _Twice._ Beat me unconscious and when I came to-”

Michael looked up and Alex simply watched him; they were both cautiously blank, but the truth of what was between them simmering and swollen like a broken bone. Kyle wasn’t the only one to look away, hearing the way the bourbon sloshed in the bottle hard twice telling him that Liz and Maria were finding their own distraction.

“Why didn’t you stop him with your alien brain power?” Rosa asked, confusion plain on her face and Michael was shockingly vulnerable in that moment before he closed up again and Kyle watched him slip into the angsty cowboy like he was pulling on old jeans. 

“Because we _used_ to have some rules.” He shrugged, tossing them all a careless smile and looked directly at Alex before his gaze slipped to Maria. “No one could know. _No one_. Not our family. Not the people we loved.” Michael’s face twisted up on a shrug that rolled through his whole body. He holds out a hand, the bottle of bourbon snapping out of Liz’s hands to slap against his palm. He tilted it with a bleak grin. “Doesn’t matter now. Max made the rules. _Max_ broke the rules. Max isn’t _here_ right now, so we’re making a game time play.”

“I hate sports metaphors,” Isobel muttered at him, sniffing and straightening with a small wiggle of shoulders. 

“Consider the audience,” Michael replied, looking directly at Kyle like he still wanted to hit him.

She quirked an eyebrow. “True.”

Kyle didn’t know it, but he and Rosa both rolled their eyes at exactly the same time before shaking their heads. “Whatever, pod people.”

“My Dad is a part of Project Shepherd. They were running an illegal and off books internment camp for the aliens that survived the ‘47 crash.” Alex started talking and Kyle recognized the shift into military, the quick clipped tone and the way he was pulling his shoulders straight and broad, chin up and voice clear. “We managed to extract data files that I’m currently decrypting that cover decades of abuse and torture masquerading as science and interrogation.”

“Also, there’s _that_ ,” Michael spit, lifting a hand like he was showing off a shiny new car.

“We could use that information,” Liz started, kicking into motion, eyes going wide and hopeful as Maria let her hand drop to curl around her wrist. “We _could_!” She spun, looking at Isobel and Michael. “That’s decades of research-”

“That they killed my _mother_ for.”

Isobel gasped, the squeak of her bar stool loud in the silence as she stared at Michael’s profile. “Mich-”

“Not now, Iz.” He ducked his head and turned to her, smile going soft and a little pleading. “Not now, okay? I can’t.” He let her take his hand between both of hers as she nodded.

An uneasy quiet settled over the Pony, just the harsh sound of breathing and unspoken words. They looked at each other, realizing the tangle they were caught in, feeling their lives become heavy with purpose. Kyle felt like he could suffocate in the silence.

“So,” Rosa finally said. “I’m living at Max Evans’ house?”

Liz exhaled like a burst balloon. “I want to tell Dad.”

“You ca-”

“Why can’t I?”

Isobel gaped for a moment before her brow knit and she looked down. “I-”

“Because you can’t just bring a girl back to life that’s been dead for 10 years without someone asking questions,” Maria said finally, wetting her lips and giving Liz a look that was so soft and careful it felt like she’d caged a butterfly in her fingers. “No matter how happy it would make him.”

“Not yet,” Isobel finished, eyes going a determined that meant she had found something to plan. She’d found her purpose. “I can make the town forget.” She lifted her chin. “I could do it.”

Liz nodded, jaw squaring. “I can make the booster.”

“I’ll get you the data decrypted.” Alex pushed to his feet.

“I’ll get Rosa-” 

“No, we need your brain on the science stuff, Michael,” Liz shook her head and gave him a little smile. 

“I’ll stick with Rosa.” Maria shrugs lightly and doesn’t make eye contact with anyone but Liz.

“I can use Maria for practice,” Isobel said, tipping her head like she was about to say something embarrassing. “It’s really difficult to... get insid-”

“Gross.” Kyle rolled his eyes and turned to look at where Rosa was leaning back on her palms and shot her a look. She shrugged. “It is. She’s a lot, okay?”

They all looked around. “Did we just make a plan?” Kyle could hear how incredulous he sounded.

“Yeah,” Michael muttered. “ _Surprise._ ”

**

Michael Guerin was almost to his truck; he’d almost escaped when Isobel caught him by the shoulder and he had to turn. He sniffed, jaw working as his mouth opened and closed in a way that said there were words he was eating back, biting around vowels as he looked at her. She tilted her head and he looked down, blowing out the chance to say something petty on a long breath and hitched his thumb to tell her to get in. 

“Let’s go for a ride,” he murmured, feeling it stick like tar in his throat, hot and burning. He wasn’t expecting the way she ignored him completely and just tackled him back into the truck door with a hug that squeezed the air from his lungs in a quick sharp shove. He wasn’t expecting it so he couldn’t prepare for it- didn’t have the holstered self indulgent smile or the one-two defensive punch of sarcasm and self deprecation. He just had his sister holding him.

He was being held, close and tight and _important_. There were footsteps in the dark and the clattering riot of coyotes out farther in the dark, laughing and shouting wordless yips over each other in the moonlight. Michael was trying to find his defenses. He could hear Isobel breathing and the low murmur of human voices just to his left. The parking lot lights were a garish orange- clashing with the neon of the bar sign, the beacon that pulled them all here shining out into the dark. 

Isobel tucked her nose against his neck and whispered, “I love you, you fucking idiot.” Michael couldn’t catch his breath, he couldn’t catch his footing, and he just reached for her, grabbing the front of her fur lined coat. She wet her lips as she pulled back, smiled shakily at him around a tear tracked face, and cupped his jaw between her hands, ducking a little to make sure she’s holding his eyes. “You got that?”

“Iz,” he managed, just two letters heavy with meaning, like the quiet sound of moonlight touching the desert. “I can’t. I can’t fall apar-”

“Bullshit.” He felt her fingers go tighter on his face, like she could press them into his jaw to stop the words. “I’m done letting you take care of me and hurting yourself in the process.”

He coughed, smile trying to break crooked and he looked away. The light on the Pony’s sign flickered off and suddenly it was dark. The sky was windblown with clouds gone grey in the light of a wobbling gibbous moon. The shadows it left were blue and violet, stretching and flickering over the gravel infested parking lot. Everyone was giving them space and here he was, embarrassed to break apart. Embarrassed of needing _this_. “I’m supposed to look out for _you_.” He talked to the rust that was caught on the side view mirror, the little bubbles that pepper the chrome like he could read the age on his Chevy as braille. His truck had its own scars; he’s always liked that he could put at least one thing back together no matter how often it broke.

Isobel smiled at him and he would do anything for her. It’s a simple unacknowledged truth that’s always just been there. He would do _anything_ for her and it had cost him _everything_. She wiped his face, going brisk and formal around the fond smile. “You’re such an idiot.” She wiped her fingers off on her thigh with a nod. “It’s mind boggling that you can be so smart and so idiotically stupid.” She straightened his collar, smoothing her hands over the front of his shirt and buttoning him once before reaching for his hair. He ducked back a little and narrowed his eyes. “I’ll catch you. It’s what we do.” 

“Is it?”

“Always has been,” she told him, as she cupped his jaw, deciding he’s presentable again. “You’re a disaster and I love you anyway.” He smiled at her, catching her wrist under his fingers and turning a quick kiss to her palm. It was a thank you and they both know he doesn’t always have the right words in the right moment. He’s grateful and she nodded once. “Now go be smart. I have a mighty need to yell at our older brother. I’m so sick of you boys sacrificing yourselves for the greater good.” She frowned and sighed, tilting an elegant eyebrow at him. “Like, couldn’t you just buy a sports car like a normal guy having a crisis?”

“I have a truck, Iz.” Michael smiled a real smile this time, warm and affectionate as his eyes crinkled up at the corners. “I’m a goddamn cowboy.”

“You definitely smell like one,” she sassed and he coughed a bright sound, breaking into something warm and gold, fond as he shoved lightly at her. She pushed him back, both brows cocking up as she tilted him a smile and shimmied her shoulders. “You’re the little brother I never wanted.” 

He had a hand on the handle as he cranked the door open with a squeal of hinges. “And you’re the big sister no one asked for.”

“We’re the same age, you know.”

“So we think.” He shrugged and hauled himself easily into the truck cab, pulling the door shut with a wheeze of hinges.

She was still standing in the parking lot as he pulled away, hair blowing lightly in the faint breeze that danced across the highway and swirled to pirouette in the parking lot. His headlights slid across Kyle and Alex, across Liz lonely in her car, and then away from the door and caught on the yellow glare of animal eyes farther out in the dark. He was in his truck and it was safe as he glanced in the rearview and saw Isobel nod once and then pick her way to her Audi and he could imagine the way she had to cross her arms over her chest- defensive with people she didn’t feel comfortable being soft around. He smiled, real and genuine, gripping the wheel. He was afraid of the feeling in his chest. It was old and covered in scar tissue; it was _hope _.__

__**_ _

__Kyle lounged back against the bumper of his beamer, watching Michael Guerin’s tail lights get smaller as he drove East on the highway. He sighed, rubbing his face and tilting his head to where Alex stood beside him. Alex was watching the cloud of dust that lingered at the curb more intently than necessary. Kyle hadn’t missed the abortive half step that he’d taken when Michael laughed. He reached over, patting at Alex’s shoulder for a moment before giving him a small shake to bring his gaze back to their conversation. “We forgot to tell them about where your Dad is currently.”_ _

__"Yeah, that would go over really well." Alex stared down the dark highway, lifting and resettling his right leg like he couldn’t get comfortable, like he couldn’t find his footing. His face went animated in the dark, contorting into parody, "hey guys, you know the monster that wants to eviscerate you, tried to shoot Kyle, and killed like a lot of people? He's chilling in my murder basement. Congrats! Everyone has a fucking bunker now."_ _

__"Yeah, okay. Point."_ _

__"You have your Dad in a murder basement?" Kyle nearly jumped out of his skin before turning to jab an angry finger at where Rosa was watching them from the darkened entry to the bar._ _

__"Jesus, Rosa, you can't just _do_ that."_ _

__Rosa grinned. "It's fun." She pointed between them. "Also, go back to the bunker thing. You know _I_ don't have a bunker."_ _

__"Well, you've been dead for a decade, so I'll give you a pass," Alex smiled, cocking his head and watching her with a frank fondness._ _

__"Fair.” She was watching Kyle curiously. The parking lot was going quieter with the loss of each car. Liz left to head out to Max’s house, setting it up for her sister. Rosa and Maria would follow. Isobel had lingered for a moment after Michael peeled out. He’d watched her tilt her head and then slip into her persona like wrapping herself in a blanket. Next to him, Rosa smelled like Maria’s perfume, a little like weed, and the coconut hand soap in the bathrooms. He wanted to turn and stare at her, to actually pay more attention to her this time. He wanted to know if he could see his Dad in her now that he knew to look. He ducked his head, chuffing his hands together to warm his knuckles and blew into cupped palms. “But I think it was supposed to be my sobriety basement before it was a murder basement,” she finished, bumping Kyle with her shoulder._ _

__She was handing him something and he sucked his teeth, blinking at her. “So you know.”_ _

__“Yeah. For awhile.” She twisted her mouth up and tilted her head back to stare at the sky. “It was a bit of a mind fuck to realize my sister was... _with_ my brother.” _ _

__“ So...I think I’m just going to go?” Alex pointed to himself and then at his car, backing out of the conversation carefully._ _

__“Coward.”_ _

__“Not what you said two months ago,” Alex reminded him._ _

__Kyle hissed at him a little and gave a tiny wave as Alex turned. “Fine.”_ _

__Kyle and Rosa shared the space left in the parking lot, half lit by the red glow of brake lights and deeply shadowed in the cold night air. “This is...” he struggled for the word, a word that completely summed up the surreal way his life had turned. He struggled silently, mouth opening and closing as he picked one word and discarded it- one after another, narrowing his eyes and arguing internally._ _

__“ _Right?_ ” Rosa leaned a little, resting her shoulder against his and it felt a lot like common ground. “I was going to tell you, but, you know, I was dead at the time.”_ _

__“Too soon.”_ _

__“It’s never too soon. If I don’t joke about it I’m going to start screaming.”_ _

__Kyle dropped a hand and Rosa tangled their fingers together on a quick squeeze. The wind picked up, carrying the low riot of coyote yowling across the desert. He had a sister and she tucked her fingers into his, standing against the dark. “I’m glad, you know.” He wet his lips. “I always wanted a sister.”_ _

__Rosa looked over at him and nodded. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”_ _

__Kyle coughs a sob, startled into an old pain. “Yeah.” He tucked his tongue against his top lip and stared up at the sky like tipping his head back could stop tears. “They killed him too.”_ _

__Next to him Rosa sagged, ducking her head and leaning more heavily against him. She reached up, twisting her hair in her hands thoughtfully. “He was a _good man_. I wish I’d known him better.”_ _

__“He was.” Kyle swiped at his nose with the back of his wrist. “He had a _code_.”_ _

__**_ _

__Master Sergeant Jesse Manes stayed perfectly still with his eyes closed, listening to the steady rhythm of machines beeping. He didn’t move, feeling the stretching stick of tape around his mouth, at his chest, the back of his hand, and _lower_. The feel of canned oxygen, a cool breathy euphoric, sparked and shuddered as he breathed. He was disconnected from his body, the feel of drugs slippery in his veins, at the back of his throat, and fogging his thoughts. He kept his eyes closed and forced his jaw still around the awareness of his mouth gone dry and gummy sour. The ventilator tucked between chapping lips, cracking at the corners slightly. He listened for voices, content to play dead for a bit while he found the edges of himself: his fingers, his toes, the roll of his skin, and the beating clench of his heart as his lungs worked. He was finding his mind, watching it click back to life in millimeters. _ _

__He wasn’t in a hospital, the noises ended too close. It was muffled and cool, dry air circulating from the end of his body towards the left. There was a slow thumping press of a fan, large and rolling slowly in the tempo of the breeze. His heartbeat was slowing, breathing rate piping in time from the machines to his right._ _

__He took three controlled breaths around the ventilator and opened his eyes- it’s never been helpful for him to shy from the truth._ _


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max Evans’ living room doors were tossed halfway into the yard and Liz stood next to the couch and stared out across the mesa. The wood frames were crooked on their hinges and she didn’t want to think about how they had cracked and splintered. The glass crunched a little under her shoe and she didn’t look down, if she could just keep her eyes on the horizon she could think about the way Max had come out of the scrub grass and the way her heart had decided to skip a beat. It was something she’d read about in books and completely disbelieved. The idea that an organ could simply stop working momentarily was ridiculous and sentimental. She was a scientist. She believed in facts and numbers, the empiric distillation of data into something she could read clearly. Hearts didn’t _skip_.
> 
> And then Max Evans had smiled at her.

Max Evans’ living room doors were tossed halfway into the yard and Liz stood next to the couch and stared out across the mesa. The wood frames were crooked on their hinges and she didn’t want to think about how they had cracked and splintered. The glass crunched a little under her shoe and she didn’t look down, if she could just keep her eyes on the horizon she could think about the way Max had come out of the scrub grass and the way her heart had decided to skip a beat. It was something she’d read about in books and completely disbelieved. The idea that an organ could simply stop working momentarily was ridiculous and sentimental. She was a scientist. She believed in facts and numbers, the empiric distillation of data into something she could read clearly. Hearts didn’t _skip_.

And then Max Evans had smiled at her.

She sniffed, lifting the coffee cup and blowing over the surface lightly. The sun was rising, touching down with long morning shadows across the plains. The sky had moved from indigo to pale pinks to a warming blue. The patio starting to become visible, the chairs and the fire pit differentiating themselves from the silhouettes in the dark. She wanted to step across the threshold and sit. She wanted to move out of the room filled with books, cracked spines and dog eared pages. They weren’t pristine. They were loved and battered and _read_. Max Evans didn’t do anything for show. He loved physically and with a single minded focus- whether it was the pages of a book under his fingers or _her_.

She let the weight of his jacket push into her shoulders, the sleeves too long and covering her fingers despite the way it bunched at her elbows. It smelled like him. It smelled like his skin and the shape of him that he’d made in her. She swallowed and sipped, wetting her lips and determined to not think about the way his fingers had slipped along the length of her spine as he curled to whisper her name against her collarbone. She didn’t want to think about the way he’d tipped his head back, eyes gone wide and soft with wonder, with need, with something she didn’t have the right words for when she rolled her hips. She could still feel the way his hands had tightened, startled by the feel of her. She still couldn’t let go of the way her name sounded in his voice, spoken low and reverent as a prayer as he trembled to touch. So she stared out at the mesa and the open space he wasn’t in.

“You’re an asshole, Max Evans,” she muttered, closing her eyes and stretching her mouth down to stop the burning feel of tears. She didn’t have time for this.

“I thought he was a big dumb boy.” Rosa’s voice came from behind her and it still felt like a haunting to hear her speak. “I guess he’s worse?”

Liz didn’t turn her body, just her head enough to catch her sister from the corner of her eye. “So much worse, Tata,” she agreed, smiling around the tears she couldn’t seem to stop- voice a painful attempt in lying. 

“Typical.” Rosa picked her way through the mess, frowning down at it. “Is that bloo-” she cut off. “Never mind. I seriously don’t want to know.” 

She was next to Liz finally, shoulder to shoulder and just leaning lightly against her, cup of coffee caught between her palms. The Ortecho sisters stood side by side in the wreck of Max Evans’ living room like bookends of tragedy.

“I’d stab him for you, you know,” Rosa said after a long quiet settled between them in the brightening dawn. Liz smiled, eyes crinkling up and turned to look at her. Rosa was a perfect sort of nineteen, caught in time, and it ached to see the slip of her nose, the full pout of her mouth, and the way her hair was caught half up and disdainful in the morning. She was the perfect fully formed memory that moved but hadn’t grown. 

“I know.”

“Like, really, if he hurts you again I’m going to do something drastic.”

“More drastic than dying?”

“Oh, well,” Rosa smiled, sharp and vicious, before turning a glittering impish look at Liz. “It’s not like I let a little thing like dying get in my way anymore.”

“Right.” Liz bumped their shoulders together. “I’m going to need you to come with me so I can take-”

“I’m not your lab rat, Liz.”

“I can have Kyle do it,” she finished, rolling her eyes and dropping a hand. “I just need to make sure that everything is-”

“What? Not magically _not dead_?” Rosa widened her eyes and turned, tilting her head like she was waiting for an answer. “Not going to be a thing. I was dead. Then not dead. Then _mostly_ dead? And now just alive. And I’m not going to question it. I was here and then I was here again. There wasn’t anything in between.”

Liz blinked, rearing back a little and turning to set her coffee cup down. She reached and plucked Rosa’s from her hands, cutting off the startled complaint with a quick finger. She nodded once and then turned to face Rosa directly. “I love you.”

Rosa narrowed her eyes, mouth twisting a little. “I don-”

“I love you.” Liz repeated, voice firm as she just held Rosa’s gaze. The books stayed in their shelves, the coffee steaming lightly into the cold that was pushing relentlessly into the house through the yawning broken openness. The glass glittered and the blood stain was still there, picking a Rorschach shape into the hardwood. Liz didn’t care. She was staring at Rosa who was fidgeting and uncomfortable, looking around the room, at the coffee, at the books, the ceiling, the broken wood doors, her feet. She was looking everywhere and trying to hide the way her dark eyes were going shiny with un-shed tears. She tucked her hair behind her ear and Liz could only smile at how beautiful she was. She’d forgotten. She’d forgotten the electric raging perfection that was Rosa. She’d almost forgotten the sharp edges. She’d almost forgotten the way her mouth moved when she was being sassy. She’d almost forgotten. She’d spent nights trying to remember exactly where Rosa’s moles had been. She’d imagined her face so many times over the last decade that she’d gone muddy with use. She’d gone a little blurry and gaussian around the edges. She’d started to forget and it felt like heartbreak. 

So she stared at her sister and repeated herself. “I love you.”

Rosa swiped at her face, mouth turning sharply into sadness. “Liz.”

“I love you,” Liz repeated and had to take a half step back when Rosa threw herself into her arms, clinging and clutching. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to say it, before-”

“Shut the fuck up.” Rosa growled, fingers bunching the leather of Max’s jacket in tight fists. “I love you too.”

**

Kyle was regretting his shirt by mile five of his morning run, feet pounding along the crumbling edge of the highway as he kept his breathing steady to the beat of his music. His back burned, lungs pressing like glass as he pushed himself faster. He kept his fingers loose, feeling the way his stride had settled into his hips instead of his thighs. It was easy when he found the space in his body for the run. It paced ahead like he was chasing the possibility of himself. He could hear the way his sneakers thudded against the pavement, the way the work of it shocked up his legs and the cold morning air was crackling across his face. He had to maintain core body temperature though, so he pulled it away from his skin, flinching a little from the way the cold gusted against his skin- pebbling it for a moment before it settled back against him and clung to his chest.

He turned off the main road and onto the splintering route he usually followed on Fridays. It helped to have a routine. It helped to have something that was the same week after week. It built stability. His father taught him that, taught him that he was judged by his actions and not his intentions. He put one foot in front of the other. Thinking about exercise was just as useless as thinking about changing.

Jim Valenti believed that decisions were pointless without action behind them. He could have decided to do something about becoming a doctor, but without direct application he would have stayed in Roswell forever. Kyle knew how to make a plan. He knew how to execute the steps to achieve a goal.

He also knew that sometimes no matter what the science says, the dead do come back to life.

He’d be lying to say he hadn’t been upset that his father was still six feet under, buried in the family plot outside of the city. He’d be lying if he didn’t think for just a moment about bringing him _back_.

Jim Valenti was dead, brain gone black with cancer and the last weeks had been the hardest of Kyle’s life. He ducked his head, jaw working as he picked up the pace- Beastie Boys Sabotage pushing him into a flat out sprint for the next interval.

His thighs burned, calves going tight as his lungs heaved, growling as he dug deeper, pushing harder, moving faster across the two lane drive, he jumped the cow grate and didn’t miss a beat as he ran. Kyle Valenti was fast, blitzing through a defensive line with record breaking speeds. Scholarship speed, his Dad had called it. Kyle Valenti was quick, he was smart, and he was screaming in the cold morning air as he sprinted away from the way his chest hurt. His chest hurt and it had nothing to do with his run. It had nothing to do with the way he was pushing himself too hard, too fast in the cold. It had nothing to do with any of it- not the bruise on his shoulder- not the deep tissue trauma of a gunshot wound that he refused to let slow him down. Nothing to do with anything but a boy missing his _Dad_.

The desert didn’t care. The desert just stretched out around him, a few cautious roadrunners startling away from the noise, but the sagebrush unmoved. The mesquite twisting into the sun, the small round leaves shaking in the morning breeze. In the distance the foothills crested like whales, huge and incomprehensibly beautiful. The blues stretched into reds, red sand and the parched packed dirt gone dusty with frost. The highway moving from a black line in the dawn to something pale and sun bleached, the yellow lines cracking and slightly raised. The desert didn’t care about his loss. It didn’t care about aliens. It didn’t care about cancer. It just sprawled into the horizon and sighed open in front of him and the pace of his feet.

Kyle Valenti ran until his thighs cramped, startling him as he staggered, catching on a lip of the lines as his ankle rolled and crashed hard, skidding a few feet on his shoulder- road rash scoring bright hot lines in his skin. He rolled onto his back, panting up at the sky before just screaming, whole body gone tight and angry in wordless arc as he shifted, head rocking back, mouth open. He was screaming at the sky, crying around it- the sound of grief gone to rage. 

He screamed his catharsis into the uncaring air and then picked himself up and kept moving. Jim would.

**

[sms] Meet me at Bean Me Up  
[sms] at least that way I get coffee

Isobel rolled her eyes at Maria’s text and tapped out “and my glorious presence” before deleting it and typing “it’s not like I’m looking for-” and deleted that. She finally sent a simple “k” in response before doing a small skip hop to her bedroom door. She’d been rearranging the guest room, making it feel less like a place of zen comfort and more like a modern retreat with swathes of vibrant emerald green and gold accents. She was pretty pleased with it, but sleeping in there curled on the new comforter was only a stop gap. She’d made it through the kitchen, the living room, the guest room, the bathroom, the laundry room, the craft cave, and all that was left were the office and the master suite. She’d been avoiding both. 

Noah still seemed to linger there.

However, she couldn’t visibly wear the same thing two days in a row. What she did burrowed up in blankets in the privacy of her own home was another matter entirely, thank you very much. It was unacceptable to be anything but perfectly put together and fashionable around Maria DeLuca. If she was going to sit and be bitched at, she’d at least look like sex on legs. She sniffed, wetting her lips and stared at the door handle for a long moment, heart pounding before she shoved it open and strode in purposefully. The closet doors creaked a half inch along the slide, her newfound powers still nascent and budding, pulling a light headache with them. 

Her wardrobe was in order of color from light to dark and then again by sleeve length. Her sweaters carefully folded and stacked in their cubbies, the jeans on hangers underneath. Skirts and dresses to the left, shoes on a special rack that slid in and out silently with a quick touch to activate the pneumatic. It was a custom closet- a birthday present from Noa-

She shook her head, flipping her long hair back over her shoulder and chose a pair of dark slim fit cigarette leg jeans with a high waist, fold top booties with a trail of fringe down the heel and matching belt. She picked a pale blue chambray snap front with pearl buttons, twisting into it and then matching a set of turquoise earrings and necklace. It would do.

The bedroom was quiet, the ceiling fan still where it dangled and the poster bed still rumpled. She was ignoring it in the full length mirror behind her and the way the top drawer of their night stand was still half open. It wanted to spill their secrets onto the bedspread. She knew what was in the drawer, the way she could fling a long arm out when Noah was straining up against the cuffs. It was close for a reason. 

“No.” She tugged the earrings off and unhooked the necklace, grabbing a pair of simple gold hoops and her favorite necklace that looked like gilt branches. She stroked over the feel of it, the slight catch of texture soothing. She unzipped the booties and placed them back on the rack, deciding instead on the light brown cowboy boots embroidered with colorful flowers. She cuffed the bottom of the jeans and stepped into the boots. They gave her another two inches and she straightened, towering tall and long limbed like a dancer. In the mirror she tossed herself a smug little smirk and a kiss. Battle ready.

{sms} OMW

She sent it while she leaned over the kitchen counter to snag her caramel colored leather jacket from where it hung on the back of a stool, the pale marble sparkling in the late morning light. Isobel Evans knew how to make an entrance.

**

{sms} OMW

Maria glanced down at the incoming text, pursing her mouth slightly at the way her stomach decided to add another knot of anxiety before looking up at Sheriff Valenti again. “I’m sorry, what?”

Sheriff Valenti gave her a flat look from behind her desk, tilting her head and pushing the file across her desk. “I said, you’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing in the murder of Hank McDougal, but we did have to cite you for a few infractions on city code and improper storage. The City Commissioner refused to bend on this- it’s an election year. You won’t be able to continue operating until they’re cleared.” The facade of Sheriff faded briefly and she gave a small soft look. “I’m sorry, Maria. I really am.”

“I can’t... no,” Maria started shaking, just a little light tremble that started in her fingertips and spread like a rash of wildfire through her to slip into her voice. She hated that her voice shook when she was scared, but she couldn’t control everything. “No, I _need_ to stay open. I just put Mom-” she cut off, visibly snapping her jaw shut around the words that were trying to trip out and leaned back, spine straight in the chair as she looked down at her knees. “How long?”

“As long as it takes to make the structural repairs, get you up to code, and pass the inspections.”

“That could be _months_!”

Sheriff Valenti had the audacity to look like she wanted to reach and comfort her, but stopped when Maria reared back slightly, swallowing and tugging the facade of stoicism back over her sharp features. Kyle got his edges from his Mother. “This is out of my hands.”

“Right. Of _course_ it is.” Maria blew out a breath, unable to keep the anger out of her tone, snappish and tight. She took the file, frowning around the way her eyes watered, anger making her emotional. “Thank you. I’ll be sure the next time there’s a body I don’t call. Wouldn’t want to do the right thing and lose everything.” She paused where she’d shot to her feet, closing her eyes and tilting her head slightly. “Sorry. You’re just doing your job.”

“Say hi to _Mimi_.” Sheriff Valenti folded her hands and looked up at Maria, dark eyes quiet and face a mask. It was a clear dismissal and Maria pushed out of the office, the Venetian blinds clattering against the window in the door as she slid into the hallway. She stuffed the file into her over large purse, trying to flee before the tears spilled, pushing a quick palm just under her lower lid, like she could physically hold them back.

She managed to escape out the back door, crashing into the alley and squinting into the bright New Mexico sunshine, winter weak but still blinding. She saw one of Rosa’s spaceships and nearly screamed, turning in a quick stumbling circle before forcing herself to stop. She needed to stop. She needed to think. Main street was a two lane road with a wide median that kept expanding the closer it got to the center of town, so here, next to city hall it blossomed into a town square complete with white wood veranda that was repainted once a year like clockwork. The city beautification committee would hold a fundraiser, the blond heads of the PTA Mom’s lined up in their fancy overalls and floral patterned gloves to plant prickly flowers that would wither in the summer sun and need to be replaced every few months. They’d never invited her mother to participate. They’d never asked Maria for a donation.

Maria bit back the urge to kick at the flowers, to bend and rip them up and throw them into the street. She stood stock still and pushed down the panic and the tears. She had a little saved. She had a little money squirreled away- not enough, never enough, but some. The sidewalk wasn’t crowded as she made it out of the alley, blowing out a breath and shaking her head into looking put together. She would hold her head up, she would grit her teeth and walk past the pitying looks and the stares and the small ways people shifted out of her way, the way girls reached to put a hand on their husband’s arm, touched their boyfriend’s elbow, gave her the long look of head to toe then back up, but never quite meeting her eyes.

She could take out a line of credit, _another_ one. She could shift the bills around and pull in the favor that Dave from Southern Wine and Spirits owed her. She could-

Isobel Evans was slipping out of her Audi in dark denim and a leather jacket that probably cost more than her insurance payment on her Volvo. Of course, she looked like she was sliding into a movie. Of course, her hair was perfect, lip gloss flawless. Maria had a moment to think about the over large sweater that was hanging comfortable off her shoulder, a pale violet that was so soft she’d almost worn a hole near the edge of the sleeve rubbing it between her fingers. She was in silver bangles, battered denim cuffed around her ankles, and a pair of simple ballet flats in dark purple. She’d managed to toss on her necklace and fix her hair into a simple twist of french braids to keep it away from her face. She was under dressed, off balance, and unprepared for the full force of Isobel’s presence.

But damned if she would let anyone know. “Let’s get this over with.” She didn’t pause, just walked past Isobel without a hello or a smile, wishing she’d brought her sunglasses too.

“Delighted,” Isobel drawled, words slippery and sarcastic. Maria could feel the weight of the eye roll and fought the urge to speed up when Isobel’s long stride brought them shoulder to shoulder easily. Isobel walked like the world only turned because she was moving forward. She moved like mountains wouldn’t matter if she wasn’t there to see them. Maria felt herself matching step, picking her head up and wanting to snarl at the world in tempo. 

People moved out of their way. It was _nice_.

Beam Me Up was a small storefront with yellow doors and canopied windows just off the north side of the main square. Isobel didn’t look, simply stepped into the road, confident that traffic would pause for her and Maria simply followed, caught up in her gravity and determined to not flinch. She shifted her purse on her shoulder, hopping up onto the curb as Isobel glanced at the veranda, swallowing hard and then taking a longer step, pushing past the path and through the grass. “Gigantor. Slow down.”

Isobel touched her glasses, shooting Maria a look over the tops and pursed her mouth. “You looked cold,” she said simply, unapologetic even as she shortened her stride, letting Maria slide back shoulder to shoulder.

“It’s been a morning.” Maria touched her molar with her tongue, frowning darkly and squinting down the street, trying not to look at Isobel and instead staring at where the road twisted around a corner and out of sight. She could almost see the Crash Down sign, peeking out over the low post office and city clerk archival office. The Library sat to the Southwest corner of the square and Maria considered going to ask for help filing grant work, but instead followed Isobel to stop traffic and then duck into the warm sweet smell of Beam Me Up.

“I’m sure your world is turned just upside down with invoices and the need to serve watered down vodka to idiots four sheets to the wind during some interminably boring pool tournament-”

“I prefer darts,” Maria interrupted, voice piqued as she stared at the chalkboard sign behind the baristas like she wasn’t getting what she always got.

“Of course you do,” Isobel replied, voice velvety and it dug under Maria’s skin. She plucked her sunglasses off, using the ear stem to tuck the wayward strands of golden hair away from her mouth and pointed with them to the small round girl behind the counter. “I’ll have a Triple skinny half caf cinnamon dolce latte with light foam and extra cinnamon on top, please. As well as an upside down iced white mocha with chocolate drizzle on the whip for this one.” She jerked a thumb at Maria and gave the girl behind the counter a pleasant- if fake- smile.

“How-?”

“That’s what you drink.” Isobel didn’t look at her, just scanned a bar-code from her phone and dropped a ten in the tip jar, pointing toward the back of the cafe where two armchairs sat empty and opposite each other around a low round table that had a few board games tucked underneath. “Unless you’ve changed your order?”

It was Maria’s turn to look away, confused by the way Isobel’s gaze seemed intimate for a second and then shook her head. “No, same as always.”

The cafe opened to the left from the main counter. The blackboard behind and a pastry case to the front. The hard wood was littered with mismatched chairs and tables, a couch next to a bookshelf that was canisters of house roasted beans labeled in neat handwriting. Towards the back, near the single use bathroom, were two mismatched floral armchairs, gone squishy over the years and threadbare over the edges with use.

Isobel shrugged out of her jacket, tossing it carefully over the arm of the right hand chair before bending to swipe at the seat with long fingers before sitting. She sighed, stretching her legs out and then crossing them at the knee. She unbuttoned the arms of her shirt, cuffing the sleeves up around her forearms. Maria settled into the opposite chair, perching at the front so she could hop up and collect their coffees when they finished. Her bag slapped onto the floor heavily, yawning open to show the manila file folder, her wallet, a book, a makeup bag, her red silk covered tarot deck, and what was probably and impossible tangle of headphone wires. Isobel’s judgement was nearly audible and Maria decided to simply lift her eyes and hold her gaze, face carefully blank.

There was a moment, quiet and tense that picked up between them when she refused to look away, one of Isobel’s eyebrows twitching up in question only to be answered by a small quirk of lip from Maria. “How do we start?” she finally asked, feeling it snap and settled back into her chair. She kicked off her shoes, curling her legs up under her and sitting half sideways as she draped her arm along the back and propped her temple on her fist.

Isobel just made a face, eyebrows knitting delicately as her mouth dropped open just slightly, the hint of pink tongue and Maria swallowed thickly. “Just, let me,” she breathed, grimacing and Maria felt a little dizzy, the cafe around her throbbing in and out of focus before she snapped out of the taut stare when her drink was set down in front of her. 

“Uh,” Maria managed, thanking the barista who backed away from them with a strange look. Maria gave a weak smile, touching her necklace before huffing and looking back over to where Isobel Evans was looking a bit ill. “What was that?”

“There’s something. It’s-” Isobel grimaced, the look oddly unattractive and somehow that made it prettier. “It’s in the _way_.” She kept frowning. “Last time... wait, okay let me-” she wet her lips, hair catching on her shoulder before slipping and spilling forward like water. Maria had a moment to be startled by the liquid way Isobel moved, threat lost in the sinuous flex of her shoulders as she swayed. Isobel narrowed her eyes and reached out and grabbing Maria’s wrist and pushing their hands together, tucking her fingers into the small divot of Maria’s palm. “ _Yes._. That’s... oh.” Isobel Evans started to glow, picking up the light like sun flares- pinks and violets as she crashed into Maria. There was a startled moment of openness as Maria felt herself slip _under_.

“ _Oh._ ”

**

Alex was supposed to be working on the decryption, the top left monitor proof as it blinks idly waiting for the .exe command, but he's leaning back, fingers laced together and thinking about the way Michael's jaw left red rash marks on his shoulder. He’s supposed to be cataloging the discrepancies in the data files that the secondary program is dumping as it churns through the letters Kyle’s dad had left him. He’s supposed to be doing so many things, but it’s four in the morning and he can’t stop thinking about the way Michael’s fingers felt as they stroked down the inside of his thigh, the way his lip seemed to catch as he worked his way along Alex’s chest, counting the beats of his heart with small touches of tongue. He didn’t want to go home yet, settling instead into the safety of the work, of the planning, of the preparation. 

The lighting in the bunker is shit, green and flickering slightly but Alex is thinking about the feel of Michael’s hair just under his belly button. He’s thinking of the way it felt crisp and coarse under his palm. He thought about the way it went thicker, hotter, darker as he pushed his fingers lower. He thought about the way Michael’s eyes closed so soft, lashes fanning out over his cheekbones and mouth falling open on a sigh of his name. He thought of it and gritted his jaw. He was supposed to be working not thinking of the way Michael was incapable of not tasting at him. Michael’s tongue on his skin, on his fingers, on his lip, in his mouth. Michael’s tongue punctuating their kisses like he had to chase the taste of him.

He’d kept the feel of Michael’s mouth tucked into his heart like a secret for over a decade. He’d kept the sound of his sighs like a song. He’d hum it with the back beat of hope when he missed home.

The bunker was quiet and cool, the whirring of the various computer fans just white noise to the way his chair squealed loudly when he pushed back from the keyboard. He needed to focus. He needed to find an answer, a plan, something simple and forceful that could show him the way home. He needed a map. He needed to come _home_.

“You stayed,” Michael had sighed like a song, and Alex had curled his arm under his head, the thin pillow sleep warm and he shifted, pushing his scarred knee against the heat of Michael’s skin. It had taken him days of touches, days of kisses and pleas to be okay with Michael seeing him. He hadn’t meant to come back missing pieces of himself. He hadn’t meant to come back to Roswell.

Not when coming back meant missing all the places Michael wasn’t.

He hated that he wondered if Maria had slipped into the places he’d left behind, if she had been here in Roswell with him for a decade of chance encounters. He hated that his mind supplied a decade of trading barbs and kisses. He frowned bitterly, closing his eyes and leaned back in a long line in the chair. He leaned back and away from the thought, moving his left heel to send the chair into a slow spin. He kept his eyes closed and sighed into the way he could imagine Michael here. He could hope that he would reach out and stop the chair, that he would turn them and Alex would just spread his knees. He could make room for him, for his hips, his shoulders, his _love_. Alex could make room now and of course it was the moment he let go that he lost his grip.

He wondered if Michael still moaned a little breathless and a little wild into her kisses. He wondered if it was as desperate when it was something that didn’t have to be secret. He wondered if all Michael had ever wanted was to kiss him in the sunlight. If Michael wanted to hold his hand.

If Michael still wanted _him._

Alex Manes was glaring at nothing when the computers started chirruping the end of a program run, startling him into action. He tried to pull himself with his heels, unthinking for a second, and his prosthetic twisted oddly at the strange pressure. He hissed, closing his eyes and collecting himself. He couldn’t think like this. He couldn’t go so far off track that he forgot. He couldn’t forget where he actually was and who he actually was. He didn’t have time to daydream about the possible rose colored futures that wouldn’t happen. He’d blown his life up and now he was stitching the pieces back together in code and whatever he could scrape out of the debris his father had left.

The computer was starting to scroll through the files it had unlocked, data pushing on top of itself to be seen and Alex felt his mouth drop open, eyes going wide at the sheer volume of data.   
Seventy years of data. Seventy years of torture and research. Alex Manes stared at the family legacy, pale print that detailed violation after violation. It detailed the lives that had been lost, the twisting of his family into something secret and dark: obsessive and paranoid.

He reached out, grabbing the edge of the desk and pulled to his feet, staring at one file in particular as it was layered deeper and deeper in history. It was the typical numerical cross header that kept the data easy to divide by date and type, but he couldn’t stop the way his hands moved, crossing interlaced ini front of his mouth, eyes gone wide.

MO/PS/197807April/ValentiDeLucaManes/VDMonboard.dtx

“Oh, fuck me,” he whispered. “ _Fuck._ ”

Alex looked behind him, glancing around the bunker with a newfound understanding. There were three bunks. There were two separate bathrooms. There was a closet and three dressers in the space for sleeping. Three fucking chairs tucked under the table when they’d first come down the stairs. The family legacy and the friendship it soured. 

He had a vague memory of his mother screaming,”What about me?” He remembered a plate shattering on the wall just inside the kitchen. He had a vague memory of her dark hair, high cheekbones, and black eyes flashing in a barely controlled rage. She had been fuel and his father a match. He knew her voice in screaming, not in love. He remembers the way he had chased her down the drive, watching her pull away in a deep blue Honda with wood paneling. She’d packed the car while he was in fourth grade. She’d filled it with boxes of her things and clothes piled on top of the seats with a gym bag of her records and no room for her sons. She’d packed what was important to her as she peeled back out of the drive down the cul-du-sac and out of his life.

Alex had screamed for her, snotty and red faced while his older brothers lined up behind him, quiet and stony with acceptance. Flint had smacked him, telling him to be quiet. She wasn’t worth it; if she’d wanted them, she would have taken them.

The saw grass felt like knives when they’d filed over the front lawn and back inside, the wood paneling in the living room less safe now that the pictures were gone. He remembers the empty spaces she had left, she’d taken the last bits of warmth with her leaving only the snarling trophy heads, gun racks, and her four sons behind.

He had thought she’d been yelling about herself. He thought she had been screaming _what about me? what about me? me?_

It wasn’t the first time Alex had been so very wrong.

MO/PS200812June/DeLuca/Ddecommission.dtx

**

The world is different, stretched long and pink and blue, the books picking up flares on the edges of their spines and Maria is sitting in the armchair but staring directly at where Isobel is standing in front of her. She’d been sitting a moment ago. She’d been sitting and leaned forward, Maria remembers because she’d touched her, fingers sliding against the soft skin of her palm and she had shivered.

It’s like she took a breath and a half step to the left of reality, mind spinning out and sinking under at the same time. She stares at Isobel, the long height of her, the way her hair floats a little like it’s caught in a breeze. She’s stunning, ethereal and glowing, and Maria wets her lips and tries to look away. She can feel the sadness, can taste it like the bitter black of tea left to steep in the sunlight too long. It creeps onto the back of her tongue. 

“You’re so sad,” she whispers and it feels like a shout in the quiet here, like she’s screamed Isobel’s secrets into the space between them but Isobel simply smiles and she can tell the moment she tries to hide it, patches it over with gummy soft feelings like putting plaster over a hole. She reaches out, catching at it, pushing fingers into the warm soft feeling. It’s close to love but sizzling with an undercurrent of heat and desire and she gasps-- Maria gasps and pushes it back to Isobel like a hot stone. “You’re allowed to be sad,” she says instead.

“Stop,” Isobel whispers and it’s so easy to close her eyes and lean into the suggestion, to let her face turn into it like a warm loving palm and sigh into the direction of Isobel’s voice. She could let the word sink into her, change her, become her. 

“No,” she says instead, pushing clumsily to her feet. This isn’t her space, she’s not welcome to make changes here. She’s not welcome to push back, to pull at the edges of Isobel Evans like she’d unravel in her hands. She reaches forward, reaches for where Isobel isn’t and catches her hand. She wasn’t where she was showing herself to be, standing behind the perfect projected image and Maria watched her own hand reach through it, reach and grab the front of Isobel’s shirt, grab her wrist, and pull her out of herself. She stared at the real Isobel, finding her with mascara tracked down her face and hair wild. She’d been sobbing alone in the dark and Maria knows how that feels. She knows the moment Isobel knows she’s been seen, can feel it in the way the dark goes threatening and hostile, picking darker maroons and navy in the pastel place they were in right now. The shadows grew long and sharp and she felt the moment Isobel reached into her.

They were clawing into one another now, the gloves off and raking through the delicate soft feel of each other’s emotion. It bled and screamed between them. She felt Isobel drag the hope from the back of her mind along with the feel of Michael’s mouth on hers. She felt Isobel growl and reach further, grabbing at the pain that she’d hidden in the sigh against Michael’s lips, the feel of something like tenderness that she’d chosen to keep locked away- it had been too long since someone had showed her kindness without expecting anything but her in return. She had kept the way his fingers had cupped her jaw, the way he had held her like she was something careful and special. It was her secret moment and Isobel was tearing it from her like a page in a book, slapping it down between them to laugh. Maria screamed, reaching to pull at Isobel, the rage welling and dark- blistering the edges of this world like melting film. 

Isobel had a moment, Noah’s mouth on her shoulder as he looked at her in the mirror. He’d been behind her, his fingers sliding over her stomach as he smiled a kiss onto her skin. It was a question in the gaze he locked on hers. Maria felt it, she felt the way Isobel had tried to love him, had tried but there were too many secrets stacked between them, too much love of her brothers and a desperate need to be normal. It was Isobel’s life, her lie, carefully constructed and falling apart before Maria could even pull it down. She reached anyway, finding something deeper inside of her, the way she’d simply let her brothers love. Isobel let them watch and pine and have something that was beautiful and perfect and theirs, knowing that she was never going to have it- that Isobel was different and all she had was _them_. Isobel knew that she was here to be used. That she would give everything she had to give for love of them. It felt normal and Maria had a shocking moment of utter and complete empathy. 

In that shared moment Isobel slipped and Maria found herself staring at a secret. A secret that looked like Maria’s skirts twirling around her ankles or the way her mouth twisted up in red lipstick. 

She’d found Isobel and her love of disdain painted in pictures of herself. It looked like self loathing. It looked like Isobel’s truth. It looked like _her_. Isobel was wounded, bleeding and in pain. She felt the moment she threw down the last weapon she had: the truth.

Michael was standing in the open desert, face chapped pink by the cold and so open, so open and vulnerable in a way she’d only ever seen the once. She knew that black hat, she knew that jean jacket and the soft fur lining. She knew the way it smelled like his skin, engine grease, and a light spice of day old deodorant. She knew what his curls looked like when they were shaken out from under the brim. She’d watched the way his brown eyes felt gold in the right light. She knew what his mouth looked like when he smiled in pain at her, but this wasn’t that. This was before, this was the moments before the moment his mouth had been on hers. He was open and talking to Isobel- a memory in the daylight. He’d laid himself open and Isobel had felt it, sweet and pure in her chest as she’d watched Michael talk about love. He spoke simply, he loved Alex. Always had. Probably always would.

Isobel threw the truth at her like a desperate dagger, stabbing at the last happy moment Maria had for herself and she screamed in this lovely opalescent landscape as the last shred of happiness dissolved under the weight of Michael’s breathy confession in her mind. “Probably always will.”

And then it snapped shut, folding in on itself and spat them back into the world, Isobel dropping her hands and looking around before pushing out of the chair to stumble, half retching to the bathroom. Maria bent forward, head throbbing as she shook back into herself under her skin, the memory of Isobel’s pain and loss and loneliness matching hers. Maria swallowed, mouth watering around the shared feel of nausea. She trembled and stared at the door to the bathroom that slammed shut behind Isobel. She let herself sit for a moment before wobbling onto her feet and following, pushing past the closed door and watching Isobel heave into the toilet, dry and scraping. She locked the door behind them and stared. She wanted to hate her for that. She wanted to hate her for taking that moment from her.

“Why?”

Isobel sniffled, coughing around another wracking twist of her stomach and turned her head, blinking red rimmed eyes at where Maria was leaning back against the door. “I was tired of watching people be lied to.” She made a small face.

“Noah didn’t love you.” Maria picked up the threads Isobel had cut off of herself and left behind when she’d fled.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Michael loves Alex.”

“Yes, he does.”

Maria and Isobel stared at each other for a long time. “That was cruel of you.”

“I know.” Isobel wiped at the her mouth with the back of her wrist, pushing to her feet carefully. “I don’t regret it.”

Maria felt herself crying, felt her eyes water so hot that it tracked over her face in the quiet space in the bathroom. She felt herself being small and open in front of the woman who knew how to hurt her the most. “I wish I didn’t know.”

“You say that now.” Isobel’s voice was warm and low, almost a purr of soothing malice in the weird light in the bathroom. To her right, Maria could see her reflection in the mirror. It was distorted and a little off balance next to a roll of paper towels. The bathroom smelled like sick, antiseptic cleaner, and warm vanilla. “But I know what it feels like to find out too late that someone doesn’t love you. That you’ve been lied to. I won’t let him do that to you.” Isobel looked down at her hands and Maria didn’t miss the way her thumb stroked over the pale line of skin on her ring finger. “To anyone.”

“He could love me.”

“If he could have,” Isobel said to the floor before pulling her head up and tilting a careful eyebrow at Maria. “He would have.”

**

“People are going to start talking,” Kyle started, pushing the door to the main room of the bunker open carefully, carrying two coffees in a carrier with a bag of breakfast from the Crash Down. He kept his weight on his right side, the left still smarting and scabbing slowly. “I’m pretty sure half the nurses think I’m secretly dating a married woman the way I keep having to duck out of the hospital every time I get a random text.” Kyle paused at the top of the stairs. “It probably adds to my allure, but seriously. If I’m not actually getting laid, I think that I’m the one getting used here.”

Alex didn’t look up from where he was sitting in front of the array of monitors, hair pulled into wild cowlicks and a stack of print outs next to him. He hummed a response and looked between the two monitors without acknowledging Kyle where he was waiting.

“Hi, Kyle. So nice to see you, Kyle. Thanks for letting Wentz out, Kyle.”

“I cracked the final file encryption and your Father’s letters are decoded.” Alex said to the screens, not looking away. He was skimming through the files that he’d managed to flag as most important to his recent revelation. “It’s worse? I don’t know how that’s possible.”

Kyle skipped a step on the way down hissing at the sharp stab of pain, but glad for the stoppers in the mouth pieces of the coffee as he cradled the bag of breakfast sandwiches and hash browns to his chest as he hurried to stand at Alex’s shoulder. “Worse than blowing up a prison full of people and putting your dad in a coma? Is that possible?”

“From what I can tell?” Alex glanced over finally, making a pleased little groan and snagging a coffee, pulling the plug with his teeth and spitting it to the side before taking a sip. He had dark circles under his eyes and a slight redness to his gaze.

“Have you slept?”

“Not important, Kyle,” he replied, reaching to point with the coffee cup to the second monitor from the right. He pointed and Kyle almost didn’t want to look, the picture of his Dad and Mimi DeLuca tucked together talking on grainy surveillance footage with a date stamp close to his graduation day. “Yes, it’s possible.”

“That’s-”

“Yes,” Alex sniffed, pushing a pile of papers to him. “The good news is your Dad died a hero.”

“What?” Kyle set the bag down carefully, listening to the way the wax paper crinkled in the silent air, just the hum of computer fans, the soft slide of paper on paper as the printer spit out pages of type. Next to him Alex had a manic sort of energy, the code cracking and the data stringing out around him in the pale lukewarm green lighting. “Eat something, dude.” He grabbed the back of Alex’s chair, tugging him bodily away from the keyboard, watching the way the other man’s face went from startled to rage to exhausted in the short span of seconds. “Eat. Then talk. Or talk while eating, whatever.”

Alex rubbed at his right knee idly before reaching to pop the bag open and dig out a paper wrapped sandwich. He pointed around his first bite at a page on the top of the pile. “He was smuggling them out.”

Kyle’s head snapped up, staring at Alex, unabashed hope glittering in his gaze. “What?”

Alex nodded, chewing quickly and holding a hand up as he spoke around the bite. “That’s why my dad had him taken out. He’d been smuggling patients out and listing them as dead for years. Dad was starting to track down where they went when Mimi DeLuca went crazy and the trail went cold. They’d bee-”

“My dad was working with Maria’s mom to smuggle them out of prison.”

Alex nodded. “My mom left my Dad because she thought he was cheating on her with Mimi. Turns out she wasn’t far off.”

Kyle found himself at a loss for words, staring between the pages of type that blurred on the desk, the scrolling font of data that was pulling up on the screens to fill in the blanks of knowledge. He stared at his father’s letters. He stared and he was crying, heart broken and Alex finally really looked at him. “Jesus, Kyle, what happened to you?”

Kyle had road rash on his arm, his face bruised up, and the entire left side of his body a scab. “I tripped.”

Alex threw him a flat look that barely hid the wild worry underneath. “I tripped a lot, too.”

Kyle shook his head. “No, it’s road rash. I really tripped and skidded on HWY 246. Don’t worry, Nurse Gough patched me up.” He wet his lips, turning his eyes up at the ceiling and blowing out a long slow breath. “He was saving people.”

“In the end,” Alex’s voice was soft and careful. “Yes.”

Kyle nodded. He kept nodding, mouth twisting as he let the words worm their way under the pacing guilt he’d been hiding from everyone. He nodded and let his father stay the man he’d looked up to his entire life. He let his father stay the man with the code. He let his father stay something that resembled a grown man’s hero, flawed and complicated instead of the bold easy lines of a child’s hero. He let Jim Valenti die becoming more than what his life had made him. He let his Dad die trying to help people.

Jim Valenti had a _code_. He was going to be judged by his actions, not his intentions. And he was found solid. He was found good. Kyle gave Alex a watery smile and ducked, closing his eyes around the warm feeling of redemption. “Thank you.”

Alex quietly took another bite of his breakfast and gave Kyle the dignity of crying out his grief.

**

Liz Ortecho was holding two coffees with a bright smile when Michael opened the door to the Airstream and stared at her blearily, shirtless and with half-flattened curls. He blinked once, confused and looking past her for Max before memory and awareness crashed into him like a physical blow. He simply sighed, weary, and pressed back to make room for her to enter. 

“Good, you’re up.”

“Am now,” Michael mumbled, rubbing at his eyes and waving her into the cramped interior. To his right was the small kitchen table, folded out from where it could be tucked away, a bowl of half finished cereal gone soggy overnight and a cup of water sitting in the sink to the left. The cabinets were covered with ideas, scrawled plans and chemical formulas. Liz let her brain catalog what was important while ticking through what wasn’t in her field of expertise. She found that there was more than she expected. Michael’s mind was broad and exacting, following the threads of ideas to a finite and picked apart conclusion.

“Kyle’s on his way-”

“Wonderful.”

“And he’s got the data Alex was able to decrypt.” Liz just talked over Michael’s morning muttering, leaving his mind a chance to wake up out of the grumpy half awake daze. She picked up the bowl of cereal, looking around for the trash that Michael opened with a pull of drawer as he reached past her to snag a pale white t-shirt from were it was randomly stuffed by the front door. “That’s not where clothes go, Michael.”

“Do I come to your house and judge your life choices?”

“Technically,” she paused, tapping a finger against something that looked like phenyl-2-propanone but had a slightly different chemical bond on the third molecular strand. “Yes. There as the whole threatening me with a knife thing.”

“God,” Michael blew out a breath. “I didn’t even get to eat any chocolate cake.” He pouted spectacularly for a moment, eyes closed as he rubbed at his stomach before shouldering into the shirt.

“I know, so rude of me to not let you eat cake with your thinly veiled threats.”

“I mean, if we’re being technical?”

“Don’t let me stop you, Mikey.”

“You want some cereal?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she replied, sitting down at the table and making a small stack of notebooks and pulling out a highlighter, one yellow one pink. “Tell me it’s Corn Pops. That looked like Corn Pops.”

“The generic brand, but yeah.” He smiled crookedly at the little fist pump of delight she couldn’t contain. He started picking at his curls with his fingers, floating her over a box of cereal and a bowl. “Get the milk yourself, I need to brush my teeth if company is coming.”

“I won’t tell Kyle you got fancy for him.”

“I will hurt you.”

“No you won’t,” she sing songed, spirits high at the prospect of working on a solution. She was riding high on purpose. It felt like hope. It felt like the way Max said her name and love in the same breath.

“It scares me a little that brushing your teeth is your version of fancy, Liz.”

“I think I brushed my teeth with coffee once during my finals week second year. Do _not_ recommend,” she stated, figuring out where the fridge was and snagging out a half full carton of milk and settling into cereal. “I was thinking about the boost serum-”

“Talk louder,” Michael called, the sound of water a soft gurgle followed by him popping his head out with a toothbrush working. “I’be lishning.”

Liz made a face. “I think if we take the chemical compound for the mute serum and flip the strands and add something to it that acts like a caffeine molecule?”

Michael made a face, shaking his head and chucking his chin to the paper that was pasted high above her head. He popped the toothbrush out of his mouth, talking with a mouth full of peppermint foam. “It can’t be a mirrored molecule, it has to start from the base of the acetate family and build outward, the P2P acts almost like a numbing agent, if we can-”

“Clone the stranding pattern and mask the functionality?” He grinned, lopsided and bright, popping the toothbrush into his mouth. Liz blew out a breath and stared at him. “I’m really mad at you right now, just so you know.”

“Because I’m brilliant _and_ pretty?”

“You’re pretty?”

He scoffed, offended and sat at the table, pouring out a bowl of cereal for himself and splashing it lightly with milk. She made a face and he mirrored it back at her, smirking as he started spooning it into his mouth. “Yes, obviously.” He snagged the coffee she’d brought him, taking a sip and looking around like he was hoping that maybe there was more than just the two cups. He always had a vaguely hungry look about him, just this side of skinny. “How’s your Dad? I know you want to tell him.”

“I want a lot of things.”

“You know what I mean.” He tilted his head. “All I have is Isobel and Max and one of those is gone and the other isn’t talking about what happened yet. So, I’m checking on the people that are important to my people.”

“You suck at friend, you know that right?”

“The last time I had a friend I got my hand smashed with a hammer.”

“I think you meant the last time you had a lov-”

“No, I meant what I said. We were _friends_. Even if he didn’t get that.” Michael looked away, towards the door and then down at the floor before his eyes flickered to a picture that was taped to the closet. Liz followed his glance, squinting to pick out the shape of two boys shoulder to shoulder with guitars. It took her a moment longer to recognize Alex.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked, keeping her voice casual as she spooned another bite of cereal into her mouth, chewing while she watched him struggle for an answer.

“Not really.” He shrugged, stirring idly. “Do you think your Dad would understand? Do you think he’d be able to forgive us for what we did?”

Liz paused, blinking before she realized that Michael was asking her if she could. If she could forgive him for his complicity in her sister’s murder. “Rosa is back.”

“Yeah, I know that.” He scrunched his face up, still not meeting her eyes. “I get that she’s back, but it doesn’t erase ten years of hatred and prejudice and cowardice. It doesn’t erase what we did to your family. What I helped do. I never mean-”

“Stop.” Liz blew out a breath and curled her hands around the bowl of cereal, staring down at it so she didn’t have to watch Michael slowly crumble under the weight of his guilt. She knew he wasn’t the swaggering cowboy he played for the public, but his mask dropping was the first time she’d been able to see what Alex had seen, what Max had missed all those years. There was something fragile and strong about Michael Guerin. “She’s back. He brought her _back_.” She inhaled slowly, chest rising before exhaling fully, chest falling. “I love him. If I can love him even after everything that has happened. If I can love and forgive him, then there’s something there that needs to be there. Forgiveness is a gift. It’s not earned, it’s granted.” She tilted her head, hair falling to touch the table, brushing against her forearm. “It’s not something that you get by making yourself hurt, Michael.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

He looked up, eyes golden in the soft light that picked it’s fingers between the slats in the blinds. “We’ll find a way to fix this. We’ll find a way to let your father have his daughter back. We’ll find a way to bring him back.”

“Of course we will.”

“Because I’m brilliant.”

“And I’m pretty.”

Michael shrugged, “I don’t know who told you that.” There was a blare of horn from across the auto lot. Michael made a face before leaning to peer out the window when he heard tires on gravel outside the Airstream. The walls were suspiciously thin and Liz had a moment to worry about him on cold nights before shaking her head and starting to eat breakfast. He scooped another bite, leaning over and pulled the door open before Kyle could knock. “Great.” He paused, giving Kyle a long once over. “You look like shit, Kyle.”

“You look pretty today, too.” Kyle leveled him a look and patted at him with a quick hand before waving at Liz. “I brought the data, but I’m going to need you to get it out of the beamer.”

“I am shocked that you refer to your car as The Beamer.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “It’s a BMW. Literally everyone calls it a beamer. Sue me.”

“Boys.”

Michael huffed, pushing out the door and onto the packed earth that acted as his front yard, staring at the box of paper that was sitting in the back seat. “Does Alex not believe in fucking thumb drives?”

“He said you liked having a -” Kyle cut off, eyebrows hitting his hairline as he coughed, pinking delicately. “-hands on experience. And I did not realize how that sounded in context until I said it.”

Liz decided to simply continue to eat her cereal. She gestured for Kyle to join her, he was peering at the drawings and formulas with wide eyes before looking over at Liz in question. “He’s a genius. It’s annoying. You get used to it.”

Michael pushed the door open, physically carrying the box into the Airstream and staring at where Kyle had made himself comfortable, taking the coffee cup back after he’d set the files down on the counter in the small kitchen. “Don’t eat my cereal.”

“Can’t. I’m on my way to visit with Maria before I head out of town for a minute.” Liz raised her eyebrows at him as he shook out his wrist to check the time on his watch. “I’m on a time crunch but here’s the abridged cliff notes.”

“Joy.”

“This is important for you too,” Kyle started, wetting his lips. “Apparently, Jesse Manes killed my Dad because he’d gone rogue, smuggling aliens out of Caulfield with Mimi DeLuca’s help.” Michael sat down heavily, managing to set the coffee cup on the counter before his knees went out.

“What?”

“We’ve got a general idea of where they were being taken, an underground railroad out of Caulfield and to one of the local reservations so that it’s outside the full jurisdiction of the federal government and under Tribal Law.”

“So you’re saying?”

“There might be some who survived, yes.” Kyle finally looked over at Michael, holding his gaze in a soft way, the way a surgeon delivers good news tempered with the bad. There was a chance for hope, but slim. 

“How does Mimi factor into this?” Liz reached over, tapping Kyle’s wrist to try and bring him back to the present, to the question that sat at the top of her mind. 

“I’m coming with you,” Michael said, wetting his lips as that stubborn look smeared over his face.

“No.” Kyle was surprised when he and Liz spoke at the same time.

“No, Michael,” Liz continued. “I need you for _this_. I need you to help _Max_.”

Michael squared his jaw, eyes going dark before he closed them, pushing his head back and swallowing, throat working visibly. “Find Arizona.”

“It’s not hard, just go West-”

“It’s a woman, not the state, dumbass,” Michael wet his lips and smiled sweetly. It was terrifying and Liz was grateful that he didn’t look at her like a threat anymore. “She’s a faith healer Max and I went to see in Texas. Liz and Maria were there, too. She’s based out of the Mescalero Reservation just off of Highway 70. She had a woman with her who knew about someone who could heal by laying hands- knew about the beacon. The symbol I was drawing as a kid. The symbol Max tattooed on his shoulder. The symbol that’s everywhere.” He sniffed, ducking his head, tongue caught soft between his lips as he thought. “I should have asked more questions. I shouldn’t have gotten so fucking distracted.”

Kyle nodded, holding out his hand. “Do you happen to have more to go on that a name and a vague direction? Like maybe a phone number?”

“Do you want me to google it for you too?” Michael was sharp, angry at himself and lashing out.

“Fine. I’ll ask Maria.”

Michael dropped his face into his hands and sighed heavily. “Fine.” He leaned back, reaching into a pile of papers that was laying near the head of his bed, oddly close to the open toilet that was peeking from behind a curtain at the opposite end of the Airstream. He snatched a flyer and floated it to Kyle. “I think her contact information is there in case someone wanted to book her for a private consultation after seeing her performance. Hide your wallet. She’s a hustler.”

Kyle plucked the paper from where it hung in the air, watching it oddly for a moment before folding it into his back pocket. “Right.” He nodded and looked at Liz. “Be safe.”

“I will.”

“No, you won’t,” Michael muttered. “You’ll do something crazy and brave and I’ll have to bail you out and then someone will have to bail us both out and it will all end up with everyone passed out somewhere.”

“Do the opposite of that,” Kyle said simply, cocking his head and making a face. 

Liz nodded. “Okay.”

Kyle simply reached over and covered her hand, ducking to hold her eyes as he took a steady breath. “You’re brilliant.”

“Thank you, Kyle.” She swallowed, giving him a crooked smile as she squeezed his fingers. He rapped his knuckles lightly on the Formica and pushed to his feet, waving awkwardly at where Michael was watching him with a serious face, considering in the shadows that collected around where he sat on the thin bed. 

“I hate that I’m almost rooting for him,” Michael muttered as the door shut, pushing up to his feet and sitting down to finish eating. 

“He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, so people keep telling me.”

**

Alex sat in his SUV for a long minute, hands curled on the steering wheel as the engine ticked hot in the drive. He ducked his chin, turning to push the door open and step down, careful of the way his weight shifted when he was bone tired, weary and still spinning from the rush of information he’d been sifting through all day. He could hear the way Wentz was barking, short sharp blasts from behind the door. She knew he was home, could always hear him before he’d even exited the car. Her howls called him, pushed him across the drive and up the three short stairs to the porch. It was usually quiet out here at the cabin, the wind a low moan that wandered in from the prairie. It shook the cottonwoods that grew in a small grove near the creek that butted up to the back of the yard and wandered in a lazy line across the property. He knew that about a half mile back, due south west from where he was standing the rickety tree house was still half nailed and rotting out in the second grove that grew just before the desert stretched out for miles and miles in every direction. 

He fumbled his keys, closing his eyes and blowing out a long slow breath before unlocking the front door. It was dark in the cabin and he hung his keys on the hook out of habit. He touched the top of Wentz’ head when she barreled to him, bark going loose towards the wailing howl she preferred when a thunderstorm was rolling in or a strange car was in the drive. He stroked over her ears, tugging lightly at her tail, picking her back feet up and letting her scramble after him as he felt his way through the dark to the kitchen. He was exhausted, bleary eyed and limping around a leg that knotted angrily and ached in phantom places. 

He wanted a beer. He wanted to strip out of his clothes and his prosthetic. He wanted to sit at the table and be someone else for awhile. He didn’t want the data about aliens clouding his brain. He didn’t want the torture- the death- the knowledge. He wanted something simple. Just to pretend for a little while. He wanted to be someone who could simply smile and be loved. He wanted _Michael_ to be here. He wanted to push him against the fridge, hear the beer bottles rattle with the force of it. He wanted to kiss him until he forgot his own name, forgot his legacy. He was sure that he could forget for just a moment with Michael’s mouth on his that he was a Manes’ man.

Instead, he pulled the fridge open, the light casting a yellow beam across the kitchen floor to pick his shadow out behind him, long and black where he was back lit. His skin prickled, sensitive to the cold and aware of the way his dog was still barking. She howled through short repetitive yips as he twisted the top off a beer and took a long swallow. “Wentz, Jesus. I just want to sleep, girl.”

She didn’t pause, barking in a short sharp staccato as the door to the fridge closed with a soft sibilant hiss, throwing the kitchen into darkness again. He kept two fingers on the table, counterbalanced as he closed his eyes and took another long sip. She barked and barked and he grimaced, wishing he could just let her out the front door to run herself sleepy, but the coyotes were active right now, their wild yowling a constant threat in the dark just past the property lines. He set the beer down, glancing to where she was a white and brown and black outline hazy blues in the dark, barking at the couch.

He blinked- not the couch, the _floor_. His heart caught high in his throat, whole body going taut on a quick flood of high alert adrenaline when Jesse Manes stepped forward, swinging his extra crutch like a baseball bat. Alex had a moment of sharp wild panic, of regret, of sorrow, before the blackness swallowed him.

Master Sergeant Jesse Manes stepped out of the shadows, dropping the crutch next to where his youngest son was crumpled on the floor. He sniffed once, turning to where the beagle was howling and shook his head. “Always check the perimeter.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve times in ten years. He had twelve times in ten years before the front of his Humvee had gone white and hot in an explosion that caught him so completely by surprise he still couldn’t remember it completely. They’d all just moved in a shock of fire and force, flipping once to roll into the high ditches dug by the side of the road. He’d been flung through the window, screaming when the weight of the mangled vehicle had shuddered to a stop on top of him. He’d clawed at the dirt, left leg shoving and straining to move the tan tangle of metal and the bodies of his men. Twelve times in ten years and it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Manes men haven't officially been defined or cast. So, I took the liberty.
> 
> See the casting [ HERE ](https://ubiestcaelum.tumblr.com/post/184944347747/manes-men-fancast-harlan-manes-ii-alex).

Maria didn't remember slamming out of the bathroom at Beam Me Up. There had been a group of startled teenagers who blinked up at her, one with the temerity to take out a headphone and ask if she was okay. The coffee shop seemed quieter with her rage so loud in her ears. She’d called it rage. She’d named it that instead of bitter and crippling disappointment. She’d called it rage so she didn’t have to hear herself say “I told you so.” It sounded too much like Isobel Evans’ voice.

Half an hour later she was sitting in the drive of Sander's Salvage, the dust kicked up by her tires floating slowly in the cold afternoon air. The light was weak, watery and clear as she stared at the dented dust covered Airstream. She was shaking, hands gripping the wheel, knuckles gone white as she stared at the door, the open work bay to the right, the hub caps that clattered dully on the weird pagoda that was made from old salvaged fences to the left. She was crying, chest tight as she listened to the sound of her engine ticking in the cold. The Volvo was old, passed down from her mother moments after she'd passed down the necklace. Michael's truck was pulled up to the small white picket fence that surrounded the front half of the trailer, the pale astro turf cozy green and half folded up. Liz was here, the bright blue rental emphasizing the faded age of the paint on Michael's Chevy.

"Get it together, DeLuca." She touched her necklace, stroking it along the chain, feeling the weight settle against the back of her neck. It reminded her of her mother. 

It reminded her of her mother for a breath and then she was thinking of Guerin again. She'd lied that day in her bar when Michael had dropped it in her hand. She was a liar and it curled angry in her gut. She'd felt the soft warm hope of something more than just a drunk dust up in texas when he'd watched her with those soft golden eyes. She'd thought for just a moment that maybe she was someone's first choice. She’d let herself linger in the feel of his mouth against hers- the way he’d seemed so _hungry_.

Alex hadn't told her until that day. She realized now that it was because it wasn't his secret to share.

She’d found herself waking up in the mornings with the uneasy feel of guilt sitting low in her stomach. Michael wasn’t supposed to be next in a stream of beautiful, but boring, men that wandered into her bed and then promptly out of her life. Guerin was something with depth and weight, he’d surprised her with an arm around her shoulders and her head in his lap. He’d surprised her with the fond way he followed her around. He’d surprised her when after they’d fucked dirty and cheap in the desert he’d touched her hip, her side, the back of her knee like he was learning more of her. She’d swatted at him, pulling the rough nap of the blanket tighter around herself in the dark. He’d laughed against her hair and pulled her back against him with a quick rough tug. She’d fallen asleep in his arms and woken up alone. He’d surprised her the moment she let herself see him as something more than a scoundrel with a savage right hook and little patience for pretense. 

Maria had gotten used to cleaning up after him. The yellow mop bucket had a bad third wheel and squawked like an angry crow every time she pulled it out. There was a broken glass bucket that had a strip of masking tape with his name on it. She’d spent hours fishing the broken glass off the bar floor after he was being hauled out in handcuffs with a reckless self destructive smile. She’d watched him hustle pool, hustle women, hustle her with an easy arm reaching behind the bar to pluck a bottle of indiscriminate bourbon from the well. 

“Guerin, you aren’t driving,” she’d said time and time again. 

“I’ll sleep in the back,” he slurred, shoulder sliding along the wall to the bathroom. There was a scratch in the wood from the times his zipper would catch and claw behind him. He’d scarred her bar and left his fingerprints on her skin. When he was red eyed drunk, his hat knocked crooked, tipped to the side where he’d lolled and nearly cracked his head on the wall. He kept his left hand out, injured fingers gnarled and knotted under shiny pink scar tissue. 

“No, you aren’t sleeping in my parking lot. Get your shit together and go _home_.” 

He waved the mess of fingers at her and stumbled once before slamming through the bathroom door and out of sight. She’d asked what happened to his hand exactly once and he’d throbbed a sorrow so deep she thought she imagined it; he’d smiled bright and quick in the next moment. “Chupacabra,” he told her, wetting his lips slowly and sliding her a frankly sexual stare. “Still works just fine.”

She’d rolled her eyes, desperate to get away from the fleeting feeling of grief that still lingered around him and pour another beer for Wyatt. When he was too drunk to walk straight and then further out to puke in the alley behind the Pony she’d lock up behind him and leave him to sleep face first in the mess of blankets in his truck bed. 

Michael Guerin was a mess. Michael Guerin was a beautiful mess. She’d watched him stutter through a thinly worded insult just to find an excuse to take a punch. He’d smile bloody and for a moment it felt like freedom. He’d hit back harder like he was hitting something he’d never gotten the chance to break. She’d watched him for ten years. She’d watched him self destruct and perform himself to the world.

She knew he could sink seven balls after he broke, pausing to let the other person think they had a chance. She knew he would drink two if he was lost in thought, four to start a fight, and more if he was trying to forget. She knew he could sink to his knees and smile against a stranger’s hip. She knew who he said he was, but not the Michael she’d watched in Isobel’s mind. She knew the Michael Guerin that was sharp edged and dangerous with a cut eyebrow and split knuckles. She didn’t know this soft Guerin. She didn’t know the one who said the word love like it was butter in his mouth, soft and thick, delicious. She didn’t know the Michael that seemed so sure of how he felt, chapped pink in the cold. 

And all of it was for Alex Manes.

Maria was so used to cleaning up after everyone else she didn’t realize she’d made a mess. She’d just wanted _something_ for herself. She just wanted something to sigh against, someone to be there for her for once. She wanted and she wanted and she raged, gripping the wheel of her Volvo and staring angrily out the front windshield. She went to grab her keys from the ignition, slapping the wipers into motion on accident and fumbling to pull them to a shuddering halt. She exhaled, furious.

She hated that she knew what Guerin tasted like. She knew the way his mouth moved like he was hungry, tasting her lips, her skin, her sighs. She hated that she knew how his eyes went wide and shocked in the moonlight when he pressed into her. She hated that her thighs had been involved in another accident. She hated that he’d growled her name, bending close with a hand in her hair and his toes in the dirt and _rolled_ his hips to fuck into her in short sharp thrusts that caught her breathless in the Texas night air. She hated that she ached thinking about him. She hated that she wanted his mouth on her again. She hated that Alex knew what he sounded like, that Alex’s mouth had been there _first_. If she was being honest, Maria just hated herself for wanting to make a home in someone. She hated that for a few moments Michael had looked like something real. The only person she was ever good at lying to was herself.

Maria DeLuca was tired of being second best. She still wanted to kiss him and it hurt. 

She shoved out of her car, the door squealing in need of oil and struggled to her feet. Guilt and shame and anger making her clumsy as she tangled slightly in the seat belt, purse hooking against the gear shift and she just screamed, short and sharp in the cold, kicking at the tire and slamming the door shut as she shook. The salvage yard didn’t care about her guilt. The pieces of cars and parts of small engines just sat quiet in the dirt. 

Maria had made this mess; she would have to clean it up.

**

Alex Manes kept entirely still, head aching with a white light lance of pain that blossomed from the base of his skull to crackle like lightning behind his eyes. He could feel his body waking up, protesting the entirety of his existence in throbbing time with his heartbeat. He was flat on the ground, face down, with his jaw against what felt like concrete. Alex was used to coming to on the floor and in pain. He didn’t taste blood, just stale nausea that meant mild concussion. He didn’t swallow, didn’t shift, simply let the awareness break like the dawn. He’d learned not to come around too quickly when there wasn’t the smell of smoke and the sound of screams. He’d learned to catalog the pain to see if he should play dead or stand and fight; it was the difference between fighting for himself and fighting to save others.

His prosthetic was gone. He could feel the shackles at his wrists and the discomfort of a chain, a hard slink of metal under his chest. The concrete was clean, swept free of debris and cold. The space echoed, the murmur of voices across a long stretch of space, muddy and indistinct but achingly familiar. He hated that his throat closed sharply, eyes burning when he recognized the tone, the clipped military precision, the soft affirmatives.

It was familiar and familial.

“Please tell me you at least fed my beagle,” he said, shaping the words clearly as he pushed up and rolled onto his back, scooting with one heel, right thigh lifted to keep from dragging his residual limb across the floor as he moved. He felt the slight grit of plaster dust or sawdust under his palms as he came closer to the wall. It smelled loamy and clean like fresh paint and fresh construction. The lights were a clear bright white, painful as he tipped his head back against the plaster, swallowing and slitting his eyes open. “Love what you’ve done with the place, Dad. Very homey.”

“You’re up,” Hunter said, peeling away from the small flanking formation his brothers held around his father. He was taller than Flint, broader through the shoulders, but he’d gotten their mother’s coloring with the same dark hair and eyes, square jaw and high cheekbones. Flint glanced back over his shoulder, watching Alex with an inscrutable gaze before turning back to where Master Sergeant Jesse Manes was giving orders. His oldest brother, Harlan was an inch taller than Jesse and stood in perfect parade rest, back to where Alex was chained on the floor. He’d always been Dad’s favorite. The room was a long shallow hall that had an array of surveillance monitors tacked up at the far end, the center a small oblong table with five chairs and a long hanging lamp. The walls were white, the spackle still greyish in places where the studs and drywall hang strips were exposed. Alex watched his middle brother walk in the easy clipped heel-toe step across the twenty yards and come to settle into a loose limbed squat just past the circle drawn in chalk on the floor. “Hey, little brother.”

“See you still can’t visualize distance.” Alex flicked an eyebrow at the chalk line before turning a small superior smile at Hunter.

“See you still pass out like a girl.” He smiled, an odd mirror to the quirked sass of Alex’s own and cocked his head. “Probably still scream like one too.”

“Come a little closer,” Alex dared, voice a soft snarl as he held up his hands, shaking the chains that kept him bound in a light threat.

“Hunter.” Jesse’s voice didn’t lift in volume, barking easily across the space in a light reprimand. His brother’s eyes narrowed and he didn’t turn. 

“Daddy’s calling.” Alex breathed, letting the implied insult slither past closed teeth. “Better run.”

Hunter reached out a long indolent hand to slap the ground just inside the chalk circle where Alex’s right leg should be laying. “Keep up, Squirt.” He smiled, bright and sharp, eyes glittering as he rose to his feet, quirking a soft smile. “Oh, right.”

**

There’s a bottle of bourbon sitting on the bookshelves. There’s a bottle of tequila, unopened, above the fridge. There’s a sixer with four beers sitting in the refrigerator, the brown glass beading in the warmer air that she’s let in, holding the door open and staring at them. There’s a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet along with fourteen bottles of nail polish remover under the sink. Max Evans has an old school shaving kit, black leather bag with five blue razors and a cup with a wedge of soap, boar bristle brush, and a white bottle of aftershave. She sniffed the soap, making a face as she poked around the medicine cabinet. None of the medical seals had been broken and she pushed a fingernail in the foil of one, testing it before setting it back on the small shelf and closing the mirrored door. She didn’t look at herself, ducking her eyes and then thumbing away the little bit of toothpaste she’d missed rinsing the sink this morning.

There’s a bottle of bourbon, half open, sitting on the bookshelves. She can hear it talking to her. She can hear the way it simply says: relief and quiet.

Rosa Ortecho is nineteen and she’s technically been sober for ten years. Rosa Ortecho is twenty nine and she’s been sober for a week. There’s a tool box under the kitchen sink and a box of bullets in the nightstand. She’d found the small gun safe in his closet, idly picking through Liz’s birthday and a few other random numbers until it had flashed an angry red light at her and locked down completely in protest. Max Evans had three sheriff’s uniforms, four white hats, a brown battered straw hat, and fifteen baseball snapbacks and one black fitted cap. He had four different pairs of cowboy boots, two pairs of carhartt’s, and at least four different sneakers. He owned a ridiculous amount of plaid and kept his shirts nicely folded like he’d worked in retail at some point.

There was an unopened bottle of tequila above the fridge. Max Evans had more journals than she’d ever seen. Rosa had always sucked at keeping journals. She’d make a resolution- decide to try and track why her life always just went off the rails. She’d write consistently for three weeks at most, careful and plodding before forgetting to continue and losing the pretty journal somewhere in the mess of her room, the mess of her life. There are four beers in the fridge and Rosa can only frown when she finds herself staring at them again. “Who the fuck leaves beer in the fridge?”

The door shuts and she can hear the way the seal sticks and it’s quiet in the kitchen again. She’d found the glasses. She’d found the plates and the silverware and the tupperware and the extra toilet paper bought in bulk and stored in the garage that was packed full of more books, a second fridge filled with water bottles, and the washer dryer set. Max Evans was a big dumb boy who drank two beers and was done for the night. He was a big dumb boy who read Nabokov, Pride and Prejudice, and Anna Karenina, but also had a bettered copy of Dragonriders of Pern sitting on the shelf next to the couch. Max Evans read indiscriminately and she kind of liked him a little more than she should for that. She was digging into the desk drawers in his office, searching for something to make her skin stop crawling when she realized she’d been idly searching his house for something to take the edge off. She realized she’d been cataloguing the booze, the drugs, the shape of where her addiction was waiting.

She wanted to call Jim. She wanted to hear him huff a laugh and ask her if she’d prayed about it yet like there was some Higher Power up there in the sky that wanted her to stay sober in a world that had fucking _aliens_. She wanted to hear him ask if she wanted to get coffee before the noon meeting. She wanted to have him smack the paperback copy of his battered blue big book against his thigh and quote it effortlessly in conversation. She wanted him to call her a jaywalker in that fond voice of his.

She called Kyle instead, because there was a half full bottle of bourbon on the shelves, an unopened bottle of tequila over the fridge, and four bottles of beer that were all calling her name. They desperately wanted her drunk, and dead and she’d just gotten back.

“Bro. Get me out of here,” she said with no preamble. “Liz is being all smart and shit with Michael Guerin- what the fuck?” she didn’t pause, closing her eyes and turning in a quick tight circle in the living room before simply walking out the broken patio doors and onto the pavers. “I’m going crazy surrounded by all these books and it’s messing with my head and there’s no one here and it’s fucked. Also, hi, how’re you, but also come get me?”

There’s a rush of what could be static and what could be wind as Kyle pauses audibly on the other end. She bites her lips, sending out a prayer to that Higher Power she doesn’t believe in. “Okay, let me turn around, but you have to stay in the car.”

She nearly screamed, settling for a happy fist pump instead. “Promise.”

**

“Maria’s here,” Liz said, leaning back from where she’d glanced through the tear in the newsprint glued to the window. 

“Shit.” Michael looked around like he was searching for someplace to hide before placing both hands on the table and closing his eyes. Liz had a bright hot second of realization and stared.

“Shit? Do you not want-?” She covered her mouth, eyes going wide as she watched him panic, quiet and contained before he looked up at her- pleading for a breath before his face shuttered and he pushed to his feet. “Oh _shit_.” He had a smear of pink highlighter ink on his jaw and stains on his shirt. The airstream smelled like coffee and sweet cereal milk and the lower warm smell of people too close together and sheets that needed to be washed. 

“It’s not that,” Michael said, looking around the small trailer before simply rocking back on his heels and closing his eyes. 

“What? Michael?” 

“I don’t want to talk,” Michael breathed, tongue working against his back molar as his jaw dropped open and he winced at the sound of a sharp angry noise outside. He tapped his fingers against his thigh, getting ready. 

This was a fight. Liz was watching him get ready to take a punch. Suddenly she understood. “ _Shit_.”

Michael huffed a distracted laugh, just a choked noise that bubbled up and slid around the slippery corners of the smile he’d slapped onto his face and looked at her. “Yeah. I’ll... I’ll be back?”

“I didn’t think-”

“None of us did,” Michael rolled his eyes as he spoke, pushing the door open. “That’s the problem.”

**

Michael opened the door and stared out over the salvage yard. There was a storm prickling out at the horizon, heavy looking dark clouds pulling their skirts up to step over the mountain range. He stared out at how beautiful it all was, desolate and lonely before he turned his eyes down to where Maria was staring at him, hair wild, eyes dark, and face pulled into a sharp frown that clamored up from somewhere deep within her. She stared at him, chest heaving like she was already winded from this fight, hand knotted in the long strap of her purse and he could see her trembling in the mild shake in her earrings. He stared at her and ducked his head, stepping down from the doorway and into the dirt.

“DeL-”

“You _love_ him.” She threw it down fast, skipping the formality of letting him prep for a punch in the gut and just kicking him in the teeth.

His curls blew around his face, turning away from the raw pain in her eyes as she let the silence that stretched answer quicker and simpler than anything he could have said. He didn’t want to look away, but some things made him a coward. “Yeah.” He said it to the front of his Chevy instead of to her, hearing it pop out of him like something bubbling to the surface. He struggled, shrugging himself forward towards where she stood beside the closed door of her car. “Yeah, I do.”

“You had no right,” she whispered, chin dimpling and twisting around the way her whispered words sliced at him. He could hear the tears she was holding back. He could hear the way they tore at her from the inside. “You had no _right_ to kiss me if you love someone else. You had no right to use me to feel better about something- someone- else. I’m a person not a security blanket. I knew you were something; I never thought it was cruel.”

He wanted to reach for her, to grab her by the back of the neck and cup her jaw between his palms. He wanted to hold her together where she was breaking. He wanted to let her stab at him instead of inward at herself. “ _Maria._ ”

“No!” She held up a hand, purse swinging in counter rhythm to the force of it, battering a little against the Volvo as she stood in the wind, hair blustering and worming out of the loose braids that framed her face. “No. You don’t get to _do_ that. You don’t get to say my name like it means something when you’re the one who made me feel so fucking stupid. And you did. I feel stupid and used. I feel like an idiot for thinking maybe you liked me. I feel like an idiot for being so incredibly wrong about what was happening between us. I thought maybe, just maybe, you wanted something real. I should have known. I should have known, because I’ve watched you do this for ten years. Ten years! And wow, here I am. Here I am, just another girl that you used to feel better for a little while. Second best that’s what you made me. I feel _second best_ , Guerin.” She paused, her face staying open. She stayed open and angry mixed with the hurt and humiliation. He hated it, hated that he’d done this to someone who burned so fierce. He hated that this doubt was him. He hated that he’d smothered a little bit of her fire. “You said it was over. You said it was _over_. You lied to me. You _used_ me. I deserve to be someone’s first choice!”

He tucked his lips over his teeth, tilting into the pain of it, sharper than a slap and slower than bleeding out. “You deserve to be put first.”

Maria sneered, ugly and angry as she stared up at him, taut and angular. “No fucking shit, Guerin. I can’t believe I put myself here, again. I can’t believe I let myself _hope_.” And there it was, the truth sitting between them like an unmade bed, rumpled with the possibility of who they could have been. It sits between them like a thousand lost mornings of kisses in dawn light. It sits between them like the touch of fingertips one at a time against the spaces between her ribs. The possibility of them if they’d started sooner. The possibility of them if he’d never given his heart so completely to someone who folded it up and walked away.

“I had no right,” he agreed, voice soft and he wants to reach out and cover her wrist with his hand. He wants to pull her close and whisper apologies into her hair. He wants to do so many things that weren’t his to do. He couldn’t stitch a wound he was creating. He blew out a breath. “I can tell you why, but it won’t be enough. Not really.”

“Why? You think I want to know your why? You think I care about why you decided to tell me it was over when it wasn’t? You think I can’t figure that out on my own? Do you really think I’m that stupid? Fuck you.” Maria tilted her head back, eyes up to try and keep the tears in her eyes but they simply tracked over her temple, fast and speeding into her hairline, into her ears. “God damnit, I hate that I’m so _angry_! Why did you kiss me? Why did _you_ kiss _me_?”

“Stop.” Michael sniffed, mouth working like he was gearing up and he took another half step closer, ducking and leaning to catch her eyes despite the way they cut at him. He shook his head, curls whipping around and tangling in the quick cold wind that was kicking up in front of the oncoming storm front. “It wasn’t. It didn’t mean nothing. It’s not-”

“If you tell me that it means something then I may actually hit you,” Maria said finally, tone flat as she exhaled a full shuddering breath. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Michael replied, reaching finally to catch her face against his palm, thumb wiping at the track of tears leaving salt stains on her skin.

“Please don’t be nice to me right now,” Maria whispered. “Please don’t be nice. You have to stop showing up for me, Guerin.”

“You’re the closest thing I have to a real friend,” Michael answered, face going a little distant like he was remembering something and angry about it. “I’m an idiot.”

“No one is arguing with you, Guerin.”

He heard the laugh that slipped out of him, the way it sounded chalky and fake. He laughed like that a lot lately. He bent, touching his mouth to her hair. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Pay your fucking bar tab.” Her fingers clawed into his shirtfront, twisting the soft cotton around her knuckles and she punched lightly at him, punched light and still angry. He could feel the way she wanted to batter against this thing between them. He could feel it in the way she wanted to scratch and tug, to push at him like she could tear the pieces off of him that belonged to someone else. What he knew now was that there would be nothing left of him if she did. “We’ll talk.”

“I’m a little broke right now.” He tucked his other arm around her, pulling her close and holding on, jaw set against her hair as he watched the clouds and the way they went darker and threatening. He watched the way the sagebrush tangled with the soft bits of cottonwood that collected at the edge of the fenceline. He wanted to be out at Foster Ranch just then. He wanted to be out halfway between home and the lonely feel of the cattle farm. He wanted to be someplace that made sense, but here he was, holding the woman he’d helped to break. Here he was standing outside his home and wishing he was anywhere else. He hated himself just then, unsurprising in how familiar it felt. He hated that in this bright brief moment he was tucking lightly against her hair, nose in the soft sweet perfume of her shampoo. He knows that it’s cheating, this comfort. He broke it. He broke it so simply with a touch of lips and a soft lie. “This thing with Alex, it was never over, I guess. Not really. Not even if I wanted it to be.”

“It never will be, Guerin.”

“I’m sorry.”

**  
The lights start flickering off in the long white hall and Alex can hear them, thumping dark with a small hissing trickle of electricity. He’d been sitting for hours, back starting to cramp up and tailbone gone numb. He flexed his right leg, bending the knee against the taut pull of scarred skin where his limb ended just below. 

He was bored.

Alex Manes was chained to a u-bolt drilled into a newly set cement floor with padded wrist cuffs in a secret base his abusive father had been building with his three older brothers and he was bored. He’d been sitting for hours, stretching and shifting his weight. He’d watched Harlan peel off of the pack without looking at him, sharp features backlit by the monitors that ticked through surveillance footage that was just grainy enough that he couldn’t place exactly what they were. He’d almost given himself a headache trying to watch surreptitiously from the corner of his eye, ears straining to pick up more of the low muttered words. They knew better than to whisper, the higher pitch carrying easily across the open echoing hall. His brothers mumbled low like water over rocks and it burrowed just under his ability to hear. Alex was frustrated. He wanted to stand up, stretch and twist, pull his body back to limber, but they’d made the chain at his wrists long enough to reach the edge of the chalk circle and only long enough to wobble to a low crouch.

So, he waited. He tipped his head back, keeping his breathing even and let his mind sink like a stone, clear and precise into the memories that made life worth living. He'd started doing this in Baghdad, the crackle of gunfire a constant threat in the night. He'd gotten so used to the sound that when it stopped he would wake, heart pounding fast and terrified. Operation Inherent Resolve had placed him just outside the Incirlik Air Base with a platoon under his command and a cell of Da'ish fighters to uproot somewhere outside of Abu Ghraib.

He found himself in the moment Michael touched his tongue light and fast to the pad of his thumb. He found himself aching for something other than the ability to stand. It was familiar and he wet his lips, ducking his chin slightly like he could duck out of the memory, but it just tilted sideways into the way the feel of Michael’s fist in the front of his grey PT uniform shirt. He listed into the sound of Michael’s laugh, a little lost and so happy as he pushed forward to catch his mouth. They’d found a motel, someplace dirty and u-shaped with an empty pool in the center and nappy over washed sheets. Alex had growled, biting into the kiss and hooking his heel just behind Michael’s ankle to push. He loved the way Michael’s face went open and surprised as he flipped, falling to bounce once on the sheets and smile bright and wide up at him. Alex just stared, aching against the metal teeth of his zipper and alight with need. 

He remembered the way Michael’s eyes had widened, shocked at the desire Alex couldn’t hide. Months, it had been _months_ and Michaels’s fingers were scarred, knotted and red but his mouth was swollen with Alex’s kisses. He fumbled at the stupidly large belt, the easiest thing he could open with the mess of his hand. He fumbled and Alex batted his fingers away, pulling at the leather to hear it slither from the belt loops, pulling the weight of Michael’s hips up slightly before throwing it away to clatter into a corner. He watched the way Michael reached for him, reached for his face as he ripped and pulled at his clothes. He remembered the way he’d said only one word that night, over and over like a prayer. “ _Alex._ ”

Alex Manes was chained to the floor and all he could think about was Michael. He wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last.

He inhaled slowly, chest rising as he laced his fingers together in his lap, cracking the knuckles with a quick twist of wrist. He exhaled and he felt the ghost of Michael’s fingers stroking down his spine like a question in the pearly morning light that wandered drunk under the blackout curtains. He remembered the way he’d been rubbing his face, pushing at the ache behind his eyes and not looking at where Michael was laying on his side behind him. He couldn’t look because he wouldn’t be able to leave. Instead, he’d slipped his dog tags back on and hooked his jeans up his hips with a little hop and snagged his shirt from the floor. “Guerin, I have to go.”

“Stay,” he’d hummed, almost a song as his fingers slid across the mess of sheets. They’d been caught up in each other, in the taste, the feel, the impossible bright heat of each other for four days. He’d found himself stumbling sex drunk from the bed to the shower, felt the way Michael had slipped in behind him, mouth tracking warm soft lipped kisses from the point of his shoulder up the line of his neck. He’d managed to get the water on and turned under the shower as Michael pulled them together at the hips and kissed him under the spray, breaking apart to gasp for air and laugh a little in the small porcelain space. Michael was smaller wet, hair pulled in long damp locks to smooth rivulets over his skin. Alex could get lost in the way his lashes clumped together, the way the water beaded to drip from his chin, from his nose, from his crooked elbows.

Alex could still get lost in that memory. 

He switched memories before he could see the way he’d turned, looking at the sheets and then at Michael, keeping his face blank against the gut punch of Michael Guerin happy and sleep warm in the morning smile he handed only to Alex. “I can’t.” He’d sniffed, turning away before he’d seen Michael’s face crumble and the way his eyes closed as he rolled onto his back, tongue against his molars as he nodded. Alex didn’t watch him get dressed. He had to make it back to base.

He switched to the letter. He knew the feel of that paper. He carried it with him through the long trek through a different kind of desert. He carried it under the weight of his small SMART book and the weight of his ABU helmet. He carried it in the top left pocket, folded into something thin and soft, fraying foxed creases. He carried it in a small plastic ziplock. He’d made it through the Academy. He’d made it through the grueling days of PT, the black pits full of broken shredded tires that left soot on his face, staining his skin where the sweat tracked clearer lines through the filth of it. He pushed over 80 in two minutes and pulled over 90 in two minutes; he ran a 5 minute mile. He stretched and screamed into becoming something sharp and quick. He let the AirForce hammer at him, change him fundamentally under the soft way he’d been so young. So very young.

He’d shipped overseas as Second Lieutenant, gold bar shiny as he stared at the faces of men who had gone tanned and red at the edges in the Iraq sunshine. The letter found him outside of Mosul, sitting in a small shaded area outside the encampment in Hatarah. They’d swim later in the Tigris and Alex would wonder at the history of this place, the endless procession of time as he held the letter that had Michael’s neat block handwriting. He’d always thought it looked like an architect’s font, but he knew Michael was just racing to keep up with his thoughts, ink smearing a little when a line ended and he had to move back to the beginning. He knew it was Michael. He knew it because he’d spent so many years just watching the other boy, the way he smiled when he knew the answer before the teacher had finished asking the question. He knew the way he would write it down on the graph paper he prefered and then cover it with his fingers and stare out the window. He knew Michael had been so bored.

He’d wanted to kiss him. He’d wanted to see if Michael could be surprised.

Alex had been the one to be surprised in the end.

_I don't want the stars without you._

Just seven words in the center of a piece of graph paper that had been torn untidily from the notebook. He could see the way Michael had sent it before he could regret it and had marveled at the courage. Michael had always been stupidly brave. Alex hadn’t been able to stop himself from coming back to Roswell on leave. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from waiting outside the UFO Emporium to catch sight of that battered blue Chevy with the creaking ball joints. He waited and when Michael had finally stopped, eyes wide and engine idling in an uneven chug as he swallowed, staring through the windshield at where Alex simply tilted his head in quiet question. Michael leaned out the window, good hand touching the edge of his side mirror before he coughed a small laugh. “Wanna go for a ride?” The question quirked his eyebrow, jaw working as he tipped his head at the passenger seat. It was an invitation.

They’d fucked on blankets in the truck bed, desperate and fast, rutting hot and hard against hips and hands. He’d heard the soft high whine Michael managed when he’d pushed deep. He folded it up with the letter and kept it next to his heart. They’d startled there, finally touching, deep and perfect in the dark, the heat slipping away as the minutes ticked on, the stars whirling overhead and the sound of howls yipping in the distance. The night wasn’t quiet in the desert. It wasn’t quiet here in New Mexico and it wasn’t quiet in Iraq. Michael was trembling, whole body shivering under the pound of his heartbeat. He was swallowing around the deep long pants of breath as he shifted, making room for Alex. Michael had his good hand on the tool box tucked at the back window of his truck and his left hand pressed Alex’s fingers into his stomach. “Wait, wait wait wait.” He’d blown out a breath and Alex had tucked his face against the curve of his shoulder and held fast, not moving around the wild beat of his heart. “Just, let me,” Michael moaned, shifting before ducking. His jeans were around his thighs, boots still on and shirt just rucked up enough that Alex could get his fingers around the length of him. 

Alex was touching Michael Guerin in the dark, miles from anyone and anything that could hurt them. Alex was pressed against the broad freckled expanse of his back and all Michael wanted in that moment was to wait, wait just a breath, to stretch it out in the dark so it lasted just a breath longer. Alex could give him that.

Twelve times in ten years. He had twelve times in ten years before the front of his Humvee had gone white and hot in an explosion that caught him so completely by surprise he still couldn’t remember it completely. They’d all just moved in a shock of fire and force, flipping once to roll into the high ditches dug by the side of the road. He’d been flung through the window, screaming when the weight of the mangled vehicle had shuddered to a stop on top of him. He’d clawed at the dirt, left leg shoving and straining to move the tan tangle of metal and the bodies of his men. Twelve times in ten years and it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough. 

Alex Manes opened his eyes when a door at the other end of the hall slid open, the lights on motion sensors ticking slowly back to bright. He watched Hunter look around and then look at him. He rolled his eyes and tucked Michael away. He’d lost the letter, the ziploc baggie not enough to keep the stain of blood and shrapnel from ruining the words.

He’d wanted to write him back. He’d wanted to find the words to tell him about what was happening. He wanted to win a war for him. 

“At least give me some music,” he said finally, bumping his head back against the wall and widening his eyes at where his brother smiled. “Fucking Spice Girls, anything is better than this.”

“I’m not an idiot. I remember how much you loved the Spice Girls.” Hunter plucked something off the table that sat halfway between where Alex was chained and the door near the monitors. “I keep explaining that boredom is a better tool than pain,” Hunter replied, smiling bright and quick as he dragged a chair behind him, wheels silent and new. “But what do I know.”

“Jarheads aren’t known for their smarts.”

Hunter's smile was surprisingly without teeth, “Hoo-rah.”

**

“You picked a shitty time to die, Max.” Isobel crossed her arms in front of herself, scarf tucked into the collar of her coat against the cold of the cave. Max didn’t answer, curled up smaller than seemed possible and floating silent in the glowing pod. “Okay, you didn’t die die, but you _died_ and it’s a fucking shitty time, okay? Your timing sucks and I’m mad at you.” She sniffed, haughty as she sucked her teeth and didn’t look away from where his dark hair tried to curl and then uncurl in the liquid light. “You should totally wake up so I can yell at you. It would be polite.” She didn’t uncross her arms, flipping her hair back over her shoulder with a tilt of her body. “Wake up, Max.”

The cave was silent, nothing but the sound of her boots shifting on the slight haze of sand that had blustered into the winding paths and never found its way out again. She blew out a long breath and ducked, moving a few feet to sit and lean against the pod Max was in. She closed her eyes, stretching her legs and crossing them at the ankle. 

“I don’t know what to do,” she finally exhaled, tilting her head against the soft smooth edge of the pod. She imagined that Max was here, snorting a laugh at her and stretching a hand across the back of some rock ledge that he would inevitably try to use as a bookshelf. He stacked books everywhere and she’d had to gather them up from places in her room and leave them by the door when they were kids. She’d hidden them under copies of Teen Vogue in their shared bathroom growing up. She was sure given the chance he would have built a couch entirely from fox edged paper backs. She’d taken him shopping instead, making sure to get him nice masculine elements for his kitchen and patio, wood with stretched leather. He’d fought her on the couch, but she usually won so they’d picked the over stuffed plush monstrosity that took up half his living room but could easily sleep two. She’d spent so many afternoons with her feet in his lap while she planned the next party for the beautification committee.

Max didn’t answer so she simply assumed he’d nodded and gestured vaguely for her to continue. She should be able to push her toes against his side to make him pay attention, but she was working with his limited availability. It was quite inconsiderate of him to take a pod break in the middle of her breakdown. “You’re supposed to tell me what to do.” She sniffed again, touching a knuckle under her eye before huffing a laugh. “Mostly so I can do what I want anyway.” 

There was a stain of candle wax on the far ledge and a pattern of footprints that settled in the dirt. The ceiling curved up, jagged and sharp in places but mostly just a cavernous smooth shape in the dark. She had set the flashlight down when the glow grew strong enough. 

When they were younger, before Michael got back, they’d scamper away from where their parents parked the minivan and run through the gully and out into the long stretch of desert plain. They didn’t need to talk, she could tell him which way to go with a thought and he’d be turning with a laugh before she’d finished thinking it. Ann always said they schooled like fish. It was dark in the cave just past the three overlapping circles of light cast by the pods. She remembers the way it had just been the two of them for so long, just the blurred edges of thought and the warm feel of his mind gone blank with a book while she let her Mom braid her hair.

Michael hadn’t changed things, just made it clear how little they knew. He’d shown up with a careful sort of smile and messy curls. She’d bought him a green hoodie from the thrift store and he’d stretched into it, watching her warily until she’d shoved his shoulder and tossed him a warm smile that was only in his head. He’d grinned and slipped her favorite flavored lipstick into the pocket, whistling innocently as she flipped the pages of a trashy magazine in the CVS. Max had disapproved, but that’s what Max did best. 

Now it was her turn to be mad. “You brought her back and I don’t know if I’m okay. I don’t know if it was worth it. I don’t know if that kind of trade is going to be okay. I don’t know what to do, Max.” She didn’t expect him to answer. It wasn’t unusual. She’d had entire conversations with a book jacket while he read. He was always half lost in his head. 

He’d never been fully gone. She frowned, pulling her coat tighter and didn’t shift her head away, able to imagine the smooth curve was his shoulder. It was cold here. It was cold and Max wasn’t in the back of her head, warm and alive. She was alone in this cave. She was alone with her thoughts. She never thought she would miss the sound of Max’s voice reading a particular passage from a book while she groaned. She never thought she would have to. She never realized that the last thing he would say to her was something so simple as, “You go ahead; I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Because it wasn’t unusual. It was normal for him to follow her. It was normal for her to walk ahead of him and let the people part and close behind them. She was used to him showing up at her house, was used to him parking in her drive and then pushing in her front door, talking before the door had even closed behind him. She did the same to him. It was normal. They were normal. They did everything together and now.

Isobel Evans hated being alone more than anything in the world and now it’s all she had.

“You picked a shitty time to die, Max.” She repeated as she twisted her mouth up and to the side, nose wrinkling around the way her throat went tight. “I’m tired of pretending I’m happy when I’m not. You’re dead and I’m not happy, Max. I’m not happy and I don’t know how-”

Her boots made a soft sound when she paused, uncrossing her ankles and recrossing them stacked the other way. Isobel smoothed her hands over her thighs and rubbed the edge of the soft cashmere scarf between her fingertips. “I told Mom that Noah left me. It’s true, I guess. Technically. It was easier than the truth. She helped me pack up his side of the closet. You should have heard her, talking about Dolores and the bridge club, just this long endless parade of polite character assassination. Gossip and now I’ll be a part of it and I think Mom can spin it. I think she wants to try. You know, for me. For us.”

“So, you should wake up.” She shrugged. “I need you to wake up now.”

“He’s not going to listen.” Isobel startled hard, pushing halfway to her feet with wild eyes before she saw where Michael was leaning just outside the glow of the pods, shoulder against the cave wall and eyes on her. “It’s kind of his thing.”

Isobel stared across the dusty space, hands moving to twitch at the hem of her coat, smooth the line of her scarf, and flip her hair back over her shoulder as she pulled herself up to her full height. She was prepping for a fight, going taut in her core and lifting her chin. “I’m not-”

“I brought your burrito blanket,” Michael dropped the words easily, talking over her as he kicked out of the lean, holding out the folded soft grey throw and heavier floral comforter. She kept them at his Airstream in case of emergencies. “You always seem to need it when you meddle,” Michael mouth scrunches up and twists to the side like he’s buttoning back a yell. He closes his eyes, face smoothing out again before he stalks forward, swagger over pronounced and lolling to a long beat as he hold out the blankets.

“Michael.”

“Stay out of my life, Iz.” He says it simply, huffing a breath and tilting his chin up to watch her in the glow. “You had no right.”

Isobel felt herself sputter, objecting to the casual reprimand. “What?”

Michael ducked, tossing a hand to the side even as he held out the blankets. Without the open air of New Mexico to play with his hair he felt smaller, contained. The nervous energy had no outlet other than the way he kept moving closer, eyes flicking back up as his mouth flattened and his jaw worked. “I told you that I loved him. I told _you_ because you’re my sister and you’re supposed-”

“Is this about _Maria_?” Isobel cut in, voice rising in a startled question as she snatched the blankets, grateful for the soft fleecy feel between her fingers. It was a comfort, rich and warm as she rubbed the seam between her fingertips and pulled them to hug against her chest. It smelled like Michael. It smelled like his shampoo and the detergent he used at the shitty 24 hour laundromat. “You can’t just _use_ people, Michael.” She dropped the last easily, unthinking in how casual it sounded, dismissive. 

She startled hard when all three pods groaned and rocked in a pulse of power, shocked as she turned her gaze back to where Michael was standing, eyes welling and golden. “That’s fucking rich coming from you.”

She stared, skin going cold as she watched him. She realized he was shaking, a slow tremble that caught in his curls. She’d seen him angry before. She’d seen him shake. She’d seen the way his jaw went hard, the way tears would fill and track silent over his cheeks. She was used to him being volatile. She was used to holding up hands and walking away. She was used to seeing this Michael, it was just never directed at _her_. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I mean, Iz. Don’t play stupid. You’re not stupid.”

“I genuinely have no idea-”

“I can’t be with Alex _fucking_ Manes, Isobel!” Michael exploded, kicking at nothing and sending all three pods thumping back in one easy bump that rippled dust into the air in its wake. “You don’t get to _decide_ that I’m lying to people. You don’t get to decide what’s the truth anymore. You don’t get to do this to me. Not after what-” He cut off, face scrunching up closed and tight before he turned and paced away from her.

“Me? You’re going to blame this whole thing on _me_? Oh, fuck you Michael.” Isobel dropped the blankets where she stood and stepped over them in the same motion, kicking out of the tangle before coming face to face. “I didn’t get to have the whole epic high school romance, and thank god for that.” She tossed her hands up, head rocking back with the force of her words. She was spitting angry, sudden and explosive. “Thank God. I just got to be a -a fucking murderer. “

“No,” Michael bit out, popping around the vowel. “No, that was _me_. I got to be the murderer. And you were just okay with tha-”

“I’m not done.” She interrupted him, eyes flashing with an anger that cracked something in the wall behind them, dust floating into the soft ring of light. “I was the one you guys hid everything from because I’m too what? _Fragile_?” She cocked her head, eyes flashing as her voice rose. “I’m six foot one in heels and I could fucking take you, Michael. I’m not some fragile thing that needs to be protected.” She could hear Ann Evans in the way her words went sharp and specific, flinging them through the dark to land on their mark. “ _You_ decided to take the fall for me. Do you think all of this would have happened if I was just told the god damned truth? You and your need to protect people. It’s not protecting me to have you decide to be the bad guy. It’s not protecting me to decide I don’t get a fucking choice. We could have discovered Noah _before_ he fucked me. Before he married me and made my whole life a sick fucking joke. Did you think about that before you came in here to yell at me about Maria fucking DeLuca?”

She watched Michael blink, a stuttering movement as he swallowed, leaning back a breath from where she pushed into his space. “No.” He blew out a breath and lifted a hand, taking her fingers in his. “I didn’t.” He swallowed. 

“You can’t,” she breathed, feeling the way the words shook up her spine, shook through her lungs and wobbled wetly on her tongue. “You can’t be with someone you don’t love-”

“Iz-”

“It fucking kills you. It kills you a little bit at a time until you’re so miserable you don’t even know who you are any more and you wish you could be fucking _sad_ about it but then they’re _dead_ and you can’t even be _mad_ because you’re just so fucking _relieved_ -” She cut off, hand coming up to trap the rest of her words behind her teeth as she stared at him in the glow, the light soft edged and sweet around the way she’d been ripping and clawing at herself- at him. She stared at him, up close and wide eyed, mouth dropped open as they stared at each other in the quiet that echoed behind her. 

And then he was moving and she was folding into his arms, caught tight and close, hand at the back of her head and her hands fisted in the back of his coat. They clung to each other, trying to get closer, to hold more of each other’s pain in the glow. In the glow Max was silent, folded up and tucked away and all they had was each other and their grief in the dark.

**


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mescalero reservation was a stunning near square of solid acreage just inside the Round Mountain plateau. Kyle had watched the mountain shift from the soft blue to a darker gray and then into living color with patches of snow near the peak and rows of blue fir trees that huddled close to the highway. The aspen had long dropped their leaves, listing black and white groves between the pine. He’d bought a night at a strange half alive Red Roof Inn and shoved Rosa to the bathroom when she’d peeled herself out of the front seat. He’d bought them something resembling dinner from a cowboy themed convenience story hidden just behind the gas station that had an uninterested teen working the counter. He’d barely looked up when Kyle had dumped an assortment of snacks on the counter that included but wasn’t limited to: a can of sour cream and onion pringles, two cans of chef boyardee ravioli, two slim jims, one pack of watermelon sour patch kids, a pack of haribo twin snakes, and four mountain dews. He added two red bull and an apple at the last second, excuse on his tongue unnecessary as the boy just bagged it all and waited for payment.
> 
> Kyle as a Doctor aspired to the level of clinical apathy this boy had achieved at 17.

Mescalero reservation was a stunning near square of solid acreage just inside the Round Mountain plateau. Kyle had watched the mountain shift from the soft blue to a darker gray and then into living color with patches of snow near the peak and rows of blue fir trees that huddled close to the highway. The aspen had long dropped their leaves, listing black and white groves between the pine. He’d bought a night at a strange half alive Red Roof Inn and shoved Rosa to the bathroom when she’d peeled herself out of the front seat. He’d bought them something resembling dinner from a cowboy themed convenience story hidden just behind the gas station that had an uninterested teen working the counter. He’d barely looked up when Kyle had dumped an assortment of snacks on the counter that included but wasn’t limited to: a can of sour cream and onion pringles, two cans of chef boyardee ravioli, two slim jims, one pack of watermelon sour patch kids, a pack of haribo twin snakes, two packs of almond joys, and four mountain dews. He added two red bull and an apple at the last second, excuse on his tongue unnecessary as the boy just bagged it all and waited for payment.

Kyle as a Doctor aspired to the level of clinical apathy this boy had achieved at 17.

He dug his phone out of his pocket again, hitting redial and trying to get ahold of the mysterious Arizona for the fourth time in as many hours. He was tired of listening to her voicemail, the customer service voice grating on the third listen and nearly impossible to stomach on the fourth. He hung up when the recording kicked on again, shoving it back in his pocket and giving a little two fingered wave that went with a flat mouthed smile at the man still sitting in a rusting folding chair outside the hotel lobby. The man didn’t smile, just watched him pass with old eyes gone a little gummy and blue with age. He had short white hair, a faded blue snap front shirt, and denim so used it was almost gray over the thighs and knees, but his cowboy boots were immaculate with the stitching kept tidy and the leather nicely oiled.

Kyle had left his cowboy boots in New Mexico when he’d left for college. They sat next to his cedar chest that kept the carefully curated high school experience his mother had been collecting for him. He’d folded his Letter Jacket around the program he’d rolled tight from Rosa’s memorial. It was next to the one he’d gotten at graduation, the one he’d gotten when his father had been reelected his sophomore year, the one from his superintendent student of the month ceremony. He had a collection of rolled programs from the high school theater productions he’d attended with Liz. He had rolled programs from so many moments, each one twisted a little in the middle and dropped next to the last. His anxiety a slow thing that made his joints the tightest and every bit of paper a roll he could slap lightly against his palm. He’d left Rosa locked away in that chest. He’d tried to leave Liz there with her.

Michigan had been surreal. Kyle remembers explaining to someone at UM that it did in fact snow in New Mexico. He remembers sitting in a class at some god awful time of day like 8 in the morning and watching a girl with confused eyebrows ask if road runners were actually real. He remembers being asked about cacti and coyotes and never once having to talk about javelinas and the smell of mesquite. There was the time he explained about the exploding spiders that left a girl backing away from him in the laundry room in the basement of the dorm he lived in. He remembers people being amazed that he knew the words to every song A Tribe Called Quest made before 2003 instead of an endless parade of country songs by Garth Brooks. He didn’t know how to tell them that he was from New Mexico, not a teen movie about Texas. He remembers the first time he’d seen Lake Michigan, on his way up the highway to hop into Canada- Windsor a short skip into underage drinking. It was a huge swath of blue water and blue skies and a pale yellow sun that baked down on them weakly. Michigan had been so wildly impossibly green, the grass silky soft under bare feet and the dirt dark and wet like loamy clay.

He’d slept with a girl who went to Bowling Green the first weekend he’d been there. He’d found his way to the frat row, the noise familiar. He remembers the way he’d drunk from red solo cups and wet his lips as he smiled at her. She’d smiled back and later she’d sighed everything but his name and disappeared right after with a quick thank you. She was the first person after Liz. She wouldn’t be the last.

The steps up to the second floor of the Red Roof Inn were somehow both outside and interior to the building, the open air carrying a loud fight from somewhere to his left and the game to his right. He jogged up, taking them two at a time and hurried down the long walkway. He couldn’t help the way he tried to look into the windows, the lights flickering against the shades or just open to an empty room that was the exact same as the one he’d gotten them. Each room had two beds with a night stand between them, a light attached to the wall between with a plug underneath. At the foot of the bed was a small gap before the low slung dresser that would sit unused. The TV was almost as old as he was and still smelled vaguely like cigarettes. The mirror was clean but freckling near the edges. The sink was cluttered with plastic covered single use soaps, cups, and lotion. Rosa was starfished out on the farthest bed, hair hanging so low to brush the floor as she stared at the ceiling.

“You dead?” He paused inside the door, tossing the bag to bounce on the shiny bedspread and drop his keys on the table to the left. “Again?”

“Ha. You are so fucking funny, Valenti.”

“Kyle.” He touched his chest, formal as he gave her a look. “I think we’ve hit the point where you don’t have to be so formal. Also, you never called me Valenti in high school so it seems weird to start now.”

“It was my feet on the dash wasn’t it? We’ll tell everyone I broke you.” She smiled and moved slightly, shifting to tilt her head back and smile at him where he rummaging in the bag of food on the other bed. “What is it with boys and their cars?”

“I’m told,” he started, wetting his lips and reaching to hand her one of the damp Mountain Dews. “That they’re a metaphor for our dicks.” He shrugged, cracking his with a quick wrist and taking a sip.

“You saying you have a luxury dick, Kyle?”

Kyle simply shrugged, taking a long swallow of Dew and sat, kicking his sneakers off and plopping his heels on the bed. “That seems mildly inappropriate,” he finished, pointing at her around the bottle. He cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. “Yet, accurate.”

“I would like to remind you that you made this about dicks,” she replied, rolling onto her front and staring into the bag before plucking out the sour snakes. “What are... wow. Okay, I’m okay with new gummy things.”

The room would get stuffy before the end of the night, the carpet a short grain that caught at his socks. He reached over, turning on the air conditioner under the drapes, watching them puff out once before settling back. The air was a little stale, wet smelling before it went cold and easy. He had so many questions. He had so many questions and most of them started at her skin and ended underneath. He had so many questions, but Kyle Valenti had just gotten really good at rolling with things from the moment a glowing handprint had appeared on Liz’s skin. He could adapt or he could go mad. He figured it was easier to just adapt; it was definitely less messy.

“You dealing okay?”

 

“No. Not at all,” Rosa shrugged. She pushed up on straight arms, tucking her legs under her to shift into sitting. The bag tore easily and she fingered at the candy thoughtfully before popping one of the gummi snakes into her mouth and looking up at him. They’d spent most of the day on the road, windows open and singing along to some old school 90’s music he’d found on his Sirius. She popped her feet up on the dash and stared out the window, watching the way Roswell went close and tight at first as they drove through the outskirts of town to move from Max’s house out in the North Eastern side of town heading West towards the mountains. She’d been quiet, eyes picking from one sign to the next and catching for a long tense breath on the fading sign above the CrashDown. They’d driven past the Wild Pony and Kyle had considered some hard core day drinking, but they were on a mission. “The last thing I remembered was Isobel Evans telling me she’d killed two people for me. Like, what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” She sucked her teeth and then leaned back on one arm, loose limbed and easy in the fall of her own body. “And then I was gone but I don’t remember being gone. There’s no white light, you know? I was just gone and now I’m back and it’s terrifying. It’s absolutely lose your mind and run screaming naked in the streets terrifying to know that when you’re dead you’re just dead.” She smiled, bright and winning. “So, you know, that’s a thing.”

Kyle wet his lips, wishing he’d paid slightly more attention in the mandatory psychology classes, but instead just blew out a breath and watched her. 

She pointed at him around the bag of gummies. “Also rap is a much bigger thing than I expected. So there’s that.”

“Wait until you find Lizzo.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“I’m sure that was a word, but it sounded like noise.”

He opened his mouth to answer but his back pocket started vibrating wildly and he startled, leaning to the side and digging it out. He stared at the unknown number for a moment before thumbing it over. “This is Kyle, how may I help you?”

“So formal,” Rosa sing-songed and he held up a hand at her, turning away to cup the phone closer.

“You’ve been calling me all day,” a female voice drawled and Kyle stood quickly, pulling his pants up around his hips like he was getting ready for inspection.

“Oh hey. Hi. Is this Arizona?”

“Again, you’ve been calling me.” She shifted the phone audibly and Kyle turned so he couldn’t watch Rosa mock him quietly from where she was sitting on the bed.

“Right, sorry.” He blew out a breath. “Please don’t hang up, but I was given your number by a mutual friend who you met in Texas.” He paused, blowing out a breath and closing one eye as he continued. “He says he owes you 263 dollars.”

There was a long pause and he pulled the phone from his face, checking to make sure the call hadn’t dropped, the timer ticking from one second to the next. “So this isn’t about trying to book a healing consult?” The woman’s voice seemed to drop an octave, tone going flat and mildly petulant before a muttered. “God damnit.”

“Um, no?” Kyle blinked. “Oh right, the faith healer thing. Yeah, no. This is about trying to get help with...,” he trailed off. “Um. Okay, can we just meet? I think this would be easier in person. I was told to ask to talk to your grandmother.”

“My who?”

“Your grandmother? I’ll pay you.” Kyle nodded, remembering what Michael had told him.

There was another long pause, something happening around a muffled and muddy conversation that meant she was holding a hand over her phone as she spoke with someone else. “Meet me at the Broken Arrow Tap house out at the fancy casino. You’re buying.” She spoke quickly and he nodded along. “And I’m not bringing anyone until I know what the hell is going on.”

“It’s a date.”

“It’s not a date, Haastį'.”

“My friends just call me Kyle.”

“Okay, _Kyle_. See you at 8. I want to get there before happy hour ends.” She paused. “Also, don’t call me. Text me like a real person you weirdo.” He heard a mumbled “What are you eighty?” before the phone went silent.

**

Sunset Mesa Assisted Living was a long low slung adobe building with a wide drive that butted up against a parking lot that had recently been repainted. There was a gravel pit to each side of the front doors that had tightly manicured bushes that would flower red in the fall. The entrance had a long overhang that jutted out into the parking lot, wide enough to allow for emergency vehicles and specially modified vans. The pillars were tagged slightly with black scuff marks and pointed to a double glass door entrance that yawned open when the motion sensor was activated. There was a heavy blower just inside the front door that tossed Isobel’s hair around her face, catching on the sticky lipgloss and wisping out of the way she’d worked it half up. The cellophane wrapping on the flowers she’d bought on the way fluttered when the door swished shut behind her, the further door clattering open on the slide with the blare of an alarm behind the charge desk that sat squat as a toad just inside the lobby. Everything was a faded sandstone color, the wallpaper under the long curving handrails that were polished wood a scene of sage green and faded navy geometrics. It was all very Santa Fe styled straight out of 1986 and Isobel smiled sweetly at the young man behind the desk who blinked at her from behind his wire rimmed glasses.

“Hello, here to visit with Mimi DeLuca?” She set the bunch of flowers down on the desktop, hesitant to actually touch anything, the whole place smelling vaguely of meatloaf and antiseptic.

He was a young mid twenties man with black hair and a half beard that she wanted to explain that if he’d just commit to a beard it would be better for him in the long run. He wasn’t fit, but he wasn’t portly, just the soft fingered plump of a boy who had spent more time playing video games than baseball. “Sign in.” He pointed at the log on the clipboard and went back to typing, glancing between the folder to his right and the screen.

“Is anyone else here for her?”

“Maria’s been here for an hour. She said you were coming.” He gave her a quick fake customer service smile as she picked up the black pen and filled in her name, the date and time, and turned when the door to the west wing buzzed, unlocking with an audible pneumatic hiss before swinging open. “They’re in room 37 on the left.” The door was overly large and oddly threatening like a disembodied arm that would corral her into the polished hallway filled with nurses, an elderly woman with wisping white hair in a wheelchair, and a chipper older man in baggy plaid who was shuffling toward the smell of food.

She gave him a quick fake smile in return, squaring her shoulders and easing past the door. She wrapped her arms around herself, her boots scuffing loud on the tile as she counted doors. She was wearing her favorite pair of dark jeans with the embroidered cowboy boots and one of Michael’s faded ivory sweatshirts she’d bought him, but he rarely let her steal. She’d woken up in his Airstream, burrito firmly wrapped, tucked against the wall with Michael’s long easy breaths just beside her. He always managed to take up more than his fair share of space, but caught between the heat of him and the ugly floral wallpaper she had enjoyed the morning, keeping her eyes closed as long as she could. The Airstream was close and tight, the smell of the beers they’d drank the night before clouded with the more chemical scent of the acetone that was left uncapped on the sink in the small kitchen. She knew where the bathroom was, but ignored her bladder and turned instead, wriggling her body around to push her forehead against his shoulder, knees against his leg where he was sprawled fully clothed on the bed next to her.

He hadn’t asked her to leave. He never did, not when she needed so desperately to stay. She’d have to get up at some point. She needed to meet Maria and stop avoiding the life that was outside the door of the Airstream. She’d given herself the night after the cave. She’d given herself a night of staying in the small bed, getting up to pluck another beer from the small fridge and just being near her brother. He’d been writing in one of his notebooks, scribbling long strings of numbers. She’d always known he was brilliant, but when she watched the way he shut out the entire world, focused completely on what was in front of him she could only think about what he could have been. Who he could have been without the lie she’d let him tell. The lie she’d let herself believe. 

“Michael.”

“Nope.”

She’d gaped, hands going indignant in the floral comforter as she plopped into the seat at the other side of the table, watching him under a perfect pout. “You don’t even-”

He looked up at her. “You don’t get to apologize, Iz. Not for that at least. I’m tired of living in the past. I’m tired of talking in explanations and what ifs.” He wet his lips, tongue pausing between his teeth as he watched her. 

She stared at him, breathing going rough as her throat closed up before nodding once. “Okay. I can do that.”

He smiled, soft and sweet before reaching out to tap the back of her hand with long fingers. “Good.” He tilted the notebook, adding some numbers to a chain that made almost no sense to her. “Hand me a beer?”

The next morning she’d pulled on his sweatshirt, fishing it out of his drawers and set the fuzzy gray blanket over him where he slept, mouth open and soft, hair tangling under the weight of his head. The dawn air was frigid, burning away the edges of sleep as she cupped the mug she’d microwaved back to hot between her palms. They’d talked all night about what needed to happen today. They’d talked out a plan and she stared at where the sky was going light and sent out a small prayer, a thought really, asking for strength as she pulled out her phone and sent the text.

[sms to Maria] I think I might be able to help your Mom.

An hour passed, left on read as Isobel sipped the coffee, legs and backside going cold against the metal chair that sat opposite an empty one near the fire pit Michael and Max had built the summer between 15 and 16. Michael had gotten a job with Sanders after working to buy the Chevy that sat across the parking lot. She’d bought him the sleeping bag. She’d bought him the hoodie. She would have bought him a new life if she could have afforded it, instead fronting him the ten grand for the Airstream with the threat of keeping it to turn into a she shed.

Now, it didn’t feel like enough. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and drained the last of the coffee and setting the mug on the ground. 

{sms} I’m listening.  
{sms} you’re still a possessive bitch.  
{sms} but I’m listening.

[sms] good morning to you too. I need to take a look if you think that would be okay. 

She paused, trying to figure out how to phrase the fact that Michael, Liz, and Kyle all thought that something nefarious and Alien had happened to Maria’s mom without implicating herself and also not bringing up her brother over text. She stared at her phone for three minutes until she realized that Maria hadn’t actually needed an explanation and had sent her an address and a time.

So now, now, she was paused outside an open door to a room that was the same faded sage green walls with pale wood furniture and a bed that looked like it could bristle with medical equipment if necessary. Maria was standing behind a thin woman whose hair flared in a wild halo on half her head, the other half trapped into loose warm looking braids. Isobel cleared her throat, shifting awkwardly and tucking the flowers against the crook of her arm. Maria looked back, eyes glancing glacial cold between where Isobel was standing in the doorway, to her sweatshirt, to the flowers and then back up to her face. “Mom, I brought a friend today,” she said finally, voice mimicking something warm and welcoming and Isobel smeared a bright matching smile onto her face.

“I don’t want to talk to a doctor again,” Mimi said, petulant as she folded her arms over her chest and held still while Maria’s fingers worked another line of braids into her hair. “They all think that I’m crazy, but I’m not crazy. I keep telling them that they’re going to get that same cancer that rotted out that sweet Dr. Okun.” She blew out a breath, delicate brow furrowing as her fingers knotted together in her lap and her mouth thinned. “No one believed him either. He was a brilliant man. They just used him like a puppet, filled him up and tossed him away. They’ll do the same to the next doctor they send.” She reached up, grabbing Maria’s wrist to pull her eyes back down, intent and direct. “It’s what they do. They get inside you and talk for you.”

Maria nodded at her mother, thumb sliding along her jaw as she held the braid in loose fingers before looking back at Isobel- daring her to pass judgement. “He’s fine Mom. He was in the sequel and everything. Got himself a husband too.”

“And I’m definitely not a doctor.” Isobel took a small half step into the room, eyes glancing around and finding the dresser covered in framed pictures of Maria and Mimi over the years. She was caught in the careful space that Maria has built for her mother here. She notices the crystals lining the window sill. She looks away from the dreamcatcher hanging over the head of the bed. She can’t seem to find anywhere to look that doesn’t seem too personal, too vulnerable and open until she just looks down a the bright petals in her arms. “I brought you some flowers?”

Mimi turned, smile bright on her face that wilted into something shuttered and frowning as she looked at Isobel. “You should apologize. Rotten girl.”

Isobel blinked, looking between where Maria was standing, shifted and arms long as she held the braids and where Mimi had turned and was frowning deeply at her. “I’m sorry.” It burst out of her, more real than she’d imagined possible and she felt like it would splatter on the ground between them, staining the tips of her boots like mopwater. “I-” She paused, looking down and frowning prettily before pulling herself back straight and turning soft eyes on the older woman. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I am sorry.” She took another half step in, holding the flowers out to Mimi gently, not sure if she was talking to her or Maria for a moment. 

The sun wasn’t slanting in the window, that would come later as it set in the west. It was a flat white brightness that glowed in the thick haze of Mimi’s half caught curls and Maria’s hair that hung loose around her shoulders. The room felt caught and still, the pictures taped to the wall speaking of an impermanence. She wondered if Maria knew that she’d done that, caught the pictures with scotch tape instead of frames so that they told a simple story that Mimi would leave here. They told the story that Mimi would get better one day and come home. Everything in the room seemed transitional. The crystals on the window sill were in order of color, the largest a piece of rose quartz smoothed round would fit perfectly in Isobel’s palm. There were so many, so many small colorful stones that meant Maria was trying everything. She was trying everything she could think of to make this moment something that wasn’t permanent.

There was a vase on the dresser that held wilting dahlias. They drooped, bent under the weight of so many petals going a little brown at the edges. She could see the candles, the way they were capped and placed around the room to light up different spots. They smelled like pink, like peonies and rose with something a little warmer under it and there was a large abalone shell filled with red desert sand carrying the small white ash cones of burnt incense. Mimi had a handmade throw over the end of her bed, the sheets tucked tight under the pillows. Everywhere that Mimi and Maria touched there were splashes of color, vibrant and overlapping. The patterns swirled idly between the geometric slashes and soft swirling florals.

It was so different from the house she’d grown up in. It was so very different from the home she’d built around herself.

“Let me put those in some water. Here, Mom, hold this.” Maria pulled one of Mimi’s thin birdlike hands up to pinch where she was braiding and stepped back. Isobel swallowed, a wave of something that felt so close to gratitude it warmed her fingertips and tingled over her palms slid under her skin. She squeezed Maria’s fingers when they brushed. It wasn’t an apology, but it was _something_. She moved after handing the flowers over and sat in the only unoccupied chair, perched lightly on the front and hands careful in her lap. 

“I can see why she liked you,” Mimi muttered after a moment, mouth a round twist of judgement as she eyed Isobel critically. “You’re very pretty.” She paused, smile flashing out like sunlight on water. “Tall.”

“It wasn’t really me she liked,” Isobel said after a moment, deciding then and there to drop all pretense and simply tell this woman the truth. She could feel the way Mimi’s thoughts seemed slippery, delicate as soap bubbles that popped in the slightest breeze. 

Mimi’s eyes went sharply focused for a moment and she dropped her hand, braid staying half finished as she reached to touch cold fingers to the point of Isobel’s chin. She stared, warm brown of her eyes so deep, caring and gentle and Isobel felt herself relax, one soft exhale and she let herself shake lightly. “No.” Mimi’s braid unraveled slightly, and she leaned closer, holding the steady eye contact. “No, it wasn’t you she liked. It wasn’t you she was so scared of, was it?” She shakes her head, eyes closed like something had stung slightly. “You’re as scared as they were. _Terrified_.”

Maria came around, kneeling gently at her mother’s knee and looked at Isobel, confused. “Mom?”

“Maria, honey. She’s terrified. Tell her I’m not going to hurt her. I don’t hurt them anymore. It’s not what I do. I help them now. Will and I? We’re saving everyone. We’re saving all of them.” Mimi’s face went slack again, eyes gone far away as she huffed a love sick sigh. “He’s so handsome, that Will Smith. America’s sweetheart.” She looked over at Maria. “Your father looked like him, you know.”

“You keep telling me that,” Maria’s voice was warm, exasperated and fond as she patted her mother’s knee.

“Did you know that Will Smith fights aliens? We were so lost before he came. He’s so brave.” Mimi turned back to Isobel. “He’s the one who helped me when I needed it. We had to get everyone out of the bunker.” She reached, faster than Isobel expected, grip strong and skin cool and dry. “There were aliens in the bunker. Kids! It wasn’t safe! He said-” She blinked again, grip going loose and Isobel flinched from the way the thought burst, like a physical slap with the scream of an off key scratch of nails. It felt like an explosion or a record skipping, a hiccup that shook through her small frame. “You have to try some sort of peppermint oil for those migraines you get. It’ll help.” Mimi patted Isobel’s hand and sat back, gone loose like a doll with cut strings, smile soft and a little lost as she looked to where Maria was still crouched.

“She’s got such lovely hair, doesn’t she?” Mimi touched the ends that curled at Maria’s shoulders. “Such good texture. My beautiful girl.”

“What was that? Is she-?” Isobel cut off, brow furrowed heavily as she frowned, a throb settling behind her eyes and her stomach twisting around the way her mouth watered, a loose nausea rolling through her in warning. 

“She’s getting worse. The Doctors think it’s an early onset dementia, but it doesn’t have a lot of the typical markers. It also doesn’t run in the family.” Maria sniffed, eyes going glossy and wet as she smiled, beautific and bright at her mother, talking around her thin shoulders to where Isobel was pulling herself together. “She’s gotten so much worse since I brought her here.” Maria swiped at her eyes and kept the bright smile facing her mother. “You said you thought you could fix-”

“I don’t think it’s dementia.” Isobel blew out a breath and picked her chin up, shaking off a clattering clunky feel of deliberate confusion that thumped in her heartbeat. “That feels like walking into a spiderweb. You get this feeling of heebie jeebies and are left pulling it off your skin for hours. This isn’t that. This is on purpose. Someone _did this_ to her.”

**

Harlan relieved Hunter of his post at some point. Alex must have dozed off, shoulder knotted and fingers numb where he’d slept curled on the cement. He’d watched his oldest brother work at the far table, light keeping his face in shadows as he sketched, careful lines on the blue drafting paper. Harlan had always had an incredibly steady hand and an engineering mind. He’d kept his room in precise lines, immaculate and ordered. The books were organized on the shelves by size and color. His drawers were just as clean, the shirts rolled, the socks tucked into each other and knotted into small tidy balls. He only wore white underwear. He only had white undershirts. He didn’t stray much from a uniform when he was young and had twisted into the ABU’s without a thought. Harlan didn’t decorate his room, just placed the items he owned in the places he’d decided they went. He had one poster tacked to his wall- Alex realized when he was older it was schematics of the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. 

Harlan was sharp and cold as a knife blade. He kept his hair cut to the standard - high and tight, black hair prickling over the curve of his skull. He had grown tall, filling into the aquiline peak of his nose and the sharp cut of his cheekbones. He looked like their father with hooded eyes and a deliberate mouth, sharp nose and thin face. Their mom would joke that all she’d given him was his coloring. Harlan didn’t smile, not in a way that felt like more than ice breaking. 

He was good at playing the part- good at playing the perfect son. He was good at plastering on what resembled sadness and happiness. It never reached his eyes. The light flowed over and around him, picking at the edges of his shoulders, the shadows under his eyes leaving his face a gaunt approximation of him.

Alex didn’t speak, just watched his hands. He’d learned very young that with Harlan, what he did with his hands was what was real. He watched the way he wouldn’t even use the eraser. Harlan always knew exactly what he was doing before he moved. He didn’t waste energy and he didn’t bother to look over to where Alex was chained. He’d never paid much attention to him before except to tilt his head curiously to the side the first time Dad had hit him. The first time Alex had been knocked to the floor and tasted blood in his mouth, spitting it on the terrazzo as he shook back to hands and knees. It was the first time he’d heard Harlan laugh. 

He’d been dozing again when he woke up to his father’s voice, eyes staying closed as his entire body went on red alert, heart kicking over and breathing trying to hitch. They’d taken his watch. They’d taken his watch and the lights would flicker on and off without movement, blurring time into an endless delay that crept at the edges of Alex’s consciousness. He blew out a long slow breath and cracked his eyes, watching where Master Sergeant Jesse Manes had a hand on Harlan’s shoulder, ducked to whisper against his ear. Neither of them looked at each other and Harlan simply nodded once and pushed back from the table on silent wheels. He set the pencil down, lined up with the others to the right of the paper and perpendicular to the metal drafting ruler he’d been using. “Yes, Master Sergeant.”

“Dismissed.” Jesse nodded, watching Harlan fall from perfect attention to something like parade rest before turning on a quick heel to click through the door and out of sight.

Alex had been trying to get a feel for the sheer size of the complex he was being held in. The long room was about fifty feet by thirty with a five monitor wide array mounted to the wall. Shadows stretched in the same blobs under the tables and chair, the light never shifting, never rolling slowly across the space. It felt timeless and unending. It was a place to be endured. The table in the center must be approximately ten feet long, perfectly new white with metal legs and silent rolling chairs. The floor was polished, sealed cement that was smooth to the touch before the dust of new construction that would settle along the walls. Just to the left of the array was a pneumatic door with hand verification locks. There was another door to his right, view obstructed by a long black filing cabinet that was still shiny and undented. The door Harlan had exited sat between the far wall and where Alex was chained, he’d glimpsed another door just beyond, the double security making it feel like some sort of holding bay. He’d seen these kinds of doors before. He’d seen Michael fighting to crash through them, to break them down. He’d seen them burn.

Five possible exits if he counted the one behind the server rack that Flint entered and exited through repeatedly, each having been used at least once during his time in captivity. He had no sense of direction, of use. He had no sense but the feel of being tucked away and out of sight, but not locked away forever. He was being stored in plain view. 

He knew a threat when he was one.

“You might as well sit up,” his father said to the array he was looking at, turning his head to acknowledge where Alex was laying on his side. “Playing dead is unbecoming of an Airman.” He turned, tucking a toe just behind his heel and spinning in a perfect about face. He cocked his head, watching Alex with those clear blue eyes. “What was the advice you gave me? Find the flaw?” Jesse smiled, something small and insincere as he folded his arms over his chest. “I guess you’re finally useful.”

“Bait?” Alex started laughing, pushing up on a straight arm and stretching his right leg, bending at the knee before twisting to sit. He hefted his weight up, repositioning himself. He kept his left heel planted, right knee lifted off the ground. The pins and needles started at the back of his fingers and he balled his fist, working blood back into his forearm and up his bicep and into his shoulder. He tilted his head back, flicking his eyebrows up silently. “Your timing is terrible, _Dad_.”

Jesse leaned back, hip resting against the table behind him as he folded his arms over his chest, watching Alex quietly. “You mistake my intentions. _You_ are not bait.” He yawned slightly, picking up a hand to touch his knuckles to his mouth, polite even now. He glanced at his watch, shaking his sleeve back to cover the face quickly. “You are leverage.”

The silence stretched for a breath and Alex was almost convinced he could hear the tick of the second hand on the antique watch Jesse wore, but knew that it was his mind playing tricks on him. They’d trained him for interrogation, but nothing he’d learned in S.E.R.E had been as effective as what he’d learned at his father’s feet. “I don’t believe you.” He wet his lips,keeping his voice carefully neutral as he returned his father’s level gaze. _Blackmail, manipulation, exploitation._ The Manes way. Alex kept his gaze level, forced his face to stay calm and sighed heavily, letting annoyance tinge his tone. “Isn’t this getting old, _Dad_? I pick myself up off the floor. I knock you down. You knock me down. Over and over and over.”

“You always get up. I had such hope for you.” Harlan was cold, sharp as cracking ice, but his father was demolition- precise and explosive, fire and concussive force. His father was quiet until he needed something to change. Alex had learned how to keep up appearances from him, learned to tongue at the split in his lip and stand straight. He’d learned that nothing he loved was safe. He’d learned that nothing he loved could last. He’d learned. He’d _learned_. “You are my greatest disappointment.”

“Spare me.” Alex rolled his eyes, flicking his wrists to reposition the chain that kept him tethered and tilted his head, stretching to the left, then the right, careful and calm. “You’re a petty bully beating children until they’re terrified to step out of line.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself,” Jesse Manes shrugged, a simple lift of one shoulder as his expression stayed the same gaunt tired- endlessly exhausted by the weight of his mission. “I’ll be the monster. If we win the imminent conflict; it will be worth it.” He shifted, reaching into the leg pocket of his ABU’s and plucked a flask of whiskey, twisting the cap and taking a quick swig. “Non est ad astra mollis e terris via.”

“Oh fuck you, you pretentious-” Alex cut off, rolling his eyes and glowering at where Jesse was taking another swig. “Seneca? Are you trying to hit every super villain stereotype in one conversation.”

“I’ve always been ambitious.”

“They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.” Alex wet his lips, prepared for this fight. He’d been preparing for this his entire life it seemed. He arched an eyebrow at his father. “I read Seneca too.”

Jesse actually smiled, quick and genuine before pushing off the table when the door behind the servers slid open with a hiss of pressurized air. He tucked the flask back into the pocket on his pants, sniffing once at the intrusion. The air was being cycled into the facility, pushed and kept even from somewhere. The facility could be hermetically sealed. Alex tucked that information next to the exact position of the pile of pencils and the way the cement was new and still just a little chalky under the u-bolt. Alex was patient. 

Alex watched Hunter stalk across the space, tossing him a cheery two fingered wave. His brother had a scar that ran from his right eyebrow to his hairline, a quick easy slice that had left him unable to stay a sniper- vision clouded slightly at the edges. He was the broadest of the four of them, Flint a close second. He carried himself with the simple swagger of a marine, all balls and no brains. It was a front. Hunter was shrewd and calculating, glossy smiles and careless bravado. Alex waved back before muttering, “All my favorite people in one spot. Is it my birthday?”

“Awfully cheerful for someone who needs my help to piss.” 

“Dick.” Alex smiled, short and crisp, both eyebrows going up as he tilted his head to smirk at Hunter. 

Hunter grinned back, crooked and bright, canines sharp in the unflinching fluorescent light. “Cute.” He paused, jabbing two fingers at him in a deliberate point. “Shut up.” He leaned forward, mouth obscured by Jesse Manes’ jaw as he spoke. Alex couldn’t hear the words, only the deeper mumbled tones and the way Jesse nodded once. Hunter leaned back, eyebrows flicking up once in question as he settled into parade rest, hands stacked at the small of his back as he waited for his orders.

Jesse Manes had four war hero sons. Alex was just the youngest. Jesse Manes had a mission. Alex was just in the way.

**

Mimi's wrists were so delicate, fragile and slim under Isobel's palms. She could feel the fast beat of her heart, the slow shift of bone and tendon before there was a light scratch of nails- sweet and encouraging to the length of Isobel's forearms. Mimi smiled at her, ducking her head to catch her eyes. It was such a strange feeling, this easy acceptance. She thought of her Mom, Ann Evans’ straight blonde hair, the way the brush moved through it. She thought about the way her mother would wash her face at the end of the night, long hair caught back and the swipe of make-up removing towelettes taking the black from her eyelashes, washing the flesh tones of her foundation, and suddenly her mother looked older, sun spotted by the endless New Mexico sunshine. Mimi seemed fragile, older and impermanent. Isobel found herself smiling comfortingly, careful of this petite woman with the wild hair and jewelry that seemed over large. The bulk of it all that weighted her to the Earth.

Mimi DeLuca was everything Ann Evans wasn't. She was easy as water, kind and flowing, accepting. Ann had been awkward and sharp, exacting but so careful. Ann loved in the snap of a credit card on a counter as she smiled at them eating chocolate dipped soft serve. Ann loved in the way she’d peel out of the fancy jacket, setting it aside and careful with her hugs when they’d surround her later with sticky fingers and smeared face. Mimi was a warm embrace, but her own mother was the careful stroke of fingers across her brow to pin back her bangs. Isobel didn't understand it, how two mothers could be so different but so full of love. She didn’t have to understand it, but she revelled in the feel of this new kind of love anyway. She couldn't help it as she sank, shifting sideways from the present to the faded pink and blues of the mindscape.

The room was the same: Mimi seated in front of the window with her wrists cradled in Isobel’s palms. The soft sage greens faded into a dusty rose even as the navy notes slanted blisteringly bright. The frames on the dresser were empty. The pictures tacked to the walls with tape blank and blurred out. She watched the way the soft petals on the florals of the room swirled and faded into each other, overlapping. A beat and the room fell away, the sweeping desert pale as the inside of a nautilus shell stretching for miles around her. She looked around, exhaling at the open expanse of Mimi’s mind, empty and carefully blank. There were doors in the distance. Doors that were built into the nothingness and she turned back to Mimi. She blinked at where Maria stood across from her, smile soft and welcoming, blinking at how stunningly beautiful she looked with her hair wild around her face and the flow of a simple white dress fluttering like it was underwater. She blinked because it wasn't Maria- Mimi smiled back at her, young and vibrantly alive.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Mimi told her, smile moving into an impish smirk, the faces blurring from Mimi to Maria again, overlaid and shifting between syllables. “We did this for you.”

“We’ve never even met,” Isobel told her, swallowing at the way the world seemed to pull in quick and sudden, crowding around her and pressing invisible hands against her to shove her out, to shove her bodily out of her own world. She was losing her grip, Mimi smiling fondly at her with Maria’s mouth- red lipstick glowing bright and vivid as blood.

“Stay out, dear.” Mimi raised a hand, reaching to her right and grasping a door handle that appeared under her fingers. She turned, shoving Isobel back roughly and stepped through the door to nothing beyond, the sound like an explosion of noise, a hiccup, a record scratch and Isobel slammed back into her chair, panting as she stared at where Mimi smiled sweetly at her. “We saw it, the ships glowing in the night. Something broke here long ago, but the pieces are everywhere. They’re everywhere for a reason. Over New York, Los Angeles, all the big cities.” She turned her hands, gripping Isobel’s forearms with slim bony fingers. “They want to be together. The pieces. Will said he didn’t think they came down here to get all rowdy. He said that they didn’t come to start a fight.” She wet her lips, voice going urgent and necessary. “They didn’t come here to-” She stilled, shaking her head slightly and tilting Isobel a quizzical look. “Maria? Who’s your friend?”

Isobel wiped at her face, feeling the wet heat that dripped over her top lip. She looked down at the red of blood and then over at Maria. “Yeah. Someone did this _to_ her.” Isobel squared her jaw, licking her lips and blowing out a determined breath. She dove back in, tearing the shade between this world and the mind with a rough hand, catching Mimi in a small spin, the hem of her white dress floating around her ankles, impossibly lovely as she sang. She came to a stop, her eyes flashing with challenge. Mimi smiled, impish and teasing- and it stuttered for a moment, replaced by Maria’s face as she beckoned with a quick flick of fingers. Maria turned in a slow spin before she turned back into Mimi and turned again tilting into a sudden sprint towards the door in the distance. Isobel huffed a vowel from behind her teeth and raced after her. “Oh no you don’t.”

**

They’d been working in silence for a solid hour before Liz groaned, shoving the slides to the side and leaning back in a long stretch from where she’d been peering into the microscope. She hummed a pitiful whine, frowning deeply and letting her hands fall to the side as she pouted spectacularly at where Michael was adding the tubes to the centrifuge. “I didn’t really love Diego, you know.”

“I distinctly remember not asking,” Michael said, not looking up.

“I knew he was going to propose, like he’d been hinting at it for weeks. There was a box in his drawer by the side of the bed.”

Michael flicked his eyes up, lifting both hands in silent imploring question before reaching down to flick the centrifuge on with a deliberate and pointed touch. 

“He was... nice. It was nice. I wanted something _nice_. I wanted someone who made me feel normal, you know? Not the girl whose sister had murdered two girls in a small town. I wanted to be normal, have a normal story. Have one of those sweet meet cutes with a nice boy who spoke spanish.” She tilted her head. “He was cute, you know? And man, he really really liked me. That part was really the best part.” She sniffed, raising her voice to talk over the hum of the machine as it started picking up speed. “The being wanted part.”

She kicked her feet, pushing the chair back with a stutter of wheels on the chipped cement floor. The science bunker was small, maybe twenty feet square with fifteen foot ceilings. There were two large ventilator fans on either side of the recessed entry where the metal ladder clutched the wall leading up to the hatch. The main space was dominated by a thick wooden table that had to have been assembled down here or dropped in and built around because there was no way it fit through the hatch. She settled on built by hand because it would light up, thick frosted glass casting everything with a soft glow. Everything had to have been carried here or built inside this small space. When she turned, spinning in a slow lazy circle, she could catalogue the sheer obsession and fervor that Michael casually displayed underground. 

The lights, carefully culled from the salvage yard and rewired to hang from the grate made of old industrial refrigerator shelves, were juxtaposed with pulleys that were mounted in the ceiling. There was a wall behind a bench topped with a military grade tarp that was nearly covered in tool drawers, old battered and black, slightly mismatched and leaning together like two drunks walking down a street after the bars had all closed. The drafting table drowning under years of drawings, over and over, of a ship. A ship that ranged from blunt nosed children’s hope to something sleek and aerodynamic. It ranged from simple doodles to intensely documented schematics that were buried under layers of math, layers of the proof of propulsion. 

She pulled her hair over her shoulder, twisting the heavy dark weight of it as she thought, still caught in the loose slow spin of the chair. “It wasn’t anything spectacular. It was safe. I liked safe. I feel like I’d been running for years and just stopping for five seconds to catch my breath felt like something that could be relief. Or you know, love.” She rolled to a stop, watching him where he was busily taking notes and cross referencing the previous batch into the journal. They’d been working on the basis of enantiomers, but Liz was starting to think that they’d need to find something slightly more specific to the alien biology. The piles of data that Michael had started sorting through, the pages upon pages of careful notes and vivisections- endless torturous experiments carefully coded and recorded were affording her an insight that felt like a breakthrough but weighed like regret.

“Mikey.”

He glanced up, mouth twisted into something perturbed and expressive as he set his hand on the table like he was bracing for impact. “Elizabeth.”

“I didn’t know.” She sniffed, shrugging. “I didn’t know and I’m sorry.”

Michael kept his head down, curls hanging over his face as he watched the way the knuckles on his left hand went white when he put pressure on his fingertips. He pressed and released, pressed and released and Liz sat quietly. She knew how to let an apology settle. She’d learned from the woman who apologized at the wrong times, the wrong way, for the wrong reasons. She’d learned what not to do every time her mother sent a card fourteen days after her birthday. She learned what not to do every time her mom left a voicemail from where ever she was these days. Every time her mother apologized and then left again.

“Nobody knew.” He sniffed, mouth twisting to the side. “It’s one of those things. So many damn secrets and that’s the one that hurt the most, because I kept it from everyone.” He lifted a shoulder before he lifted his head, face carefully blank as he looked at her. “So I tried something that was normal. For a minute I had what everyone told me I should want, you know? I had someone who just thought I was a fuck up, but _normal._ ” He tucked his tongue behind his teeth at a smile that felt fragile and bitter. “But, you know, Max decided for me.” He huffed a breath, eyes crinkling up as he looked to the left sharply. It could easily be mistaken for a smile. Liz knew better now. “Thank you.” He nodded once, ducking his chin and letting his face go quiet again before looking back at her.

She nodded in return, reaching forward she grabbed the edge of the table and pulled herself back to the microscope. “Welcome.” Liz felt the tension break, ebbing from where it had been quivering and over full in the room. She could feel the moment Michael took a full breath. “Hand me the next batch,” she said, holding out a hand before the grin broke over her face. “Mikey.”

**  
Isobel slammed through the door, winded from the quick psychic sprint necessary to catch up to Mimi. The desert disappeared in a quick flash as she grabbed Mimi by the wrist, smiling in triumph before she realized that she had no idea where they were. The building was cavernous, a long open hall with two floors of cells, a rail along the walkway over her head. There were industrial grid windows slanting the yellowed light that caught half of the space in silhouette. In front of her seemed to mirror behind her- the door gone in the space between seconds. Two matching alcoves kept stairs that walked up to the second floor and beyond. She blinked, holding up a hand at the flares of light that blurred the space for a moment before it went less theoretical and more defined. She could see three tables along the center of the space. 

It was a prison. It was a prison and Mimi was now wearing a simple uniform, similar to nursing scrubs, white and a little wrinkled near the bottom where the thick soled shoes were double knotted. She had her hair caught back in a quick bun. She smiled sweetly at Isobel, snatching her wrist back and stepping forward, whole body changing like she’d stepped into a scene. She watched the clipboard appear in her hands as she walked, stopping in front of each cell and taking a quick note, pen plucked from where it materialized in the front pocket of her top.

“They don’t talk.” Mimi’s voice carried across the empty space, sliding along the floor to wrap around Isobel’s ankle and draw her closer. “They never talk.” Mimi glanced over. “That’s why they needed us Delucas. We could communicate with them.” Mimi smiled slightly tapping a delicate finger to her temple and Isobel realized she was talking to the entirety of the other woman, not just pieces left in random piles through her consciousness. She tilted her head. “She’s so sad.” 

The cells started to come alive, lighting up in stuttered flare of pastel yellow and green. There was movement in some, some just an empty glow, and others half obscured as a body stood at the cell front. Isobel looked past Mimi to where another woman, white, head shaved, delicate boned with a soft oval face gone gaunt with abuse, was wearing a drab prisoner’s uniform and staring steadily back at her, unblinking. Isobel startled, heartbeat kicking up as the woman held her gaze, smile startling wrinkles around old eyes. 

“What-?”

Isobel was shoved out, the clap of a door slamming shut, the entirety of Mimi’s mind shattering again with the rough slip of a gear grinding. Isobel swallowed, tongue thick with the prickle of nausea that she ignored.

“Iz-?” Maria’s voice seemed so far away even though she was now crouched and watching her with worried eyes. Isobel shook her head, gritting her teeth and shoving back in with short sharp cry. 

Mimi was waiting for her. 

They were underground, in what seemed like a bunker. A heavy table sat in the center with files spread over the surface. Mimi was sitting back in a chair, feet propped up as a dark haired man with kind eyes sat across from her frozen. Isobel knew those dimples; she knew that lazy charm that seemed to stain the Valenti boys. Mimi lolled her head over to look at Isobel, smile soft and welcoming. “It changes you,” she said quietly. “Touching something from another world.” She looked away, pulling into a pose before the scene wound up and exhaled into motion. The man shook his head, pushing a new file in her direction. “I don’t think they’re what Jesse says. I don’t think they came to start a war. Not _anymore._ ” 

Isobel watched from where she seemed to have come through a door onto a terrace that sat above the sunken space. There were stairs to either side leading down, a bank of lights hanging over the table with an alcove to the left that had an old computer that blinked with lights, one of those old ones they used in movies. Isobel felt the presence before she turned, felt the weight of it in a chilling trickle of dread that crawled over her skin. She shivered, cold, as she turned her head.

The woman was there, standing simply with her hands at her sides, shaved head pale in the overhead lights. She had wide eyes and full petulant mouth that seemed so familiar. The woman stared at her, close and quiet. Isobel couldn’t even startle, held in place with the heavy weight of the woman’s gaze, her thin gaunt features catching shadows that pulled her older than she was. 

“We can get the next one out after Thursday.” The man sounded familiar when he spoke, but Isobel couldn’t tear her gaze away from the woman in the ratty prison uniform who stood so close, so silent, so unrelenting.

“What are we going to do about Dr. Holden?” Mimi’s voice was clear, somehow amplified in the space like it was being spoken directly into Isobel’s ear. 

“Do you think you can get them to act out? Get subject N-573 to amplify emotions by-” There was a shuffle of papers. “I know, Mimi. I know it hurts, but we have to-”

“Jim, I know.” Mimi sounded like her daughter then, abrupt and annoyed. Isobel almost managed to turn and look but the woman holding her gaze seemed to pulse brighter, pulling the light from all corners of the room to throb once.

“We _have_ to.” Isobel heard the heartbreak in his voice, the conviction. “They’re _kids_ -”

“I said I know.” Mimi exhaled and Isobel was able to turn her head, looking down over the space. Mimi looked directly at her. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Isobel had a moment to tense this time when she was shoved out- the scene crumbling around her like a cave in- like an explosion. She groaned, gagging around the feel of her stomach, everything under her skin revolting, roiling and nauseous as she gasped for breath. Maria was reaching for her, hands under her head and concern a claxon across her features. Isobel managed a smile, cheeky and small. “I’m going to puke.”

“Oh, okay,” Maria replied, blinking for a second. “Wait, right now?” She startled back, hand flinging out to grab a trash can from next to the bed and shoving it at Isobel just in time. “Oh God.” Isobel heard the soft choking sounds of Maria gagging in sympathy.

“We watched Independence Day in the summer when Maria was eight.” Mimi was talking, voice gone sing song as Isobel’s stomach chose to revolt again, shoving up against her ribs to dump dry heaves against the small clear trash bag. “She loved it so much. The drive-in was her favorite. We’d make a day of it, picnics and rice krispie treat balls.” Isobel trembled, wiping at her mouth with the back of her wrist. “She wanted to play with Kyle and Alex, but they said no girls allowed. Jim talked to them, but I just watched the movie, watched the way Maria was so happy.” Mimi sighed dreamily and tilted her head, reaching up to start unpicking the braids, hair going wild and big as Maria took the trash can from Isobel and set it aside. “My little girl is my whole world.” Mimi started humming then, a song that Ann used to sing when she was doing the dishes. Something sweet and simple about hearts and flames.

“You okay?” Maria cupped Isobel’s face in her hands, palms warm and dry. “You don’t have to hurt yourse-”

“I can do this.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Isobel sniffed, lip curling. She loved a challenge. She reveled in a deadline and she wasn’t going to back down from this. She covered Maria’s wrists, a sudden soothing calm flooding through her, cool and refreshing and she took a long deep breath. “Girls aren’t scared of a little blood, are they?” She arched a brow at Maria, snarling a smirk and nodding once to turn and take Mimi’s hands again. She inhaled a long slow breath and closed her eyes, pulled through and into somewhere that was oddly familiar, just set to the left of her own memories. 

Roswell High was a square shaped building that had a courtyard that spilled out into a lawn that was beaten into some sort of order. The buses would line up in the front, heaving students into the morning air and Isobel stood, lost in a flood of blurred bodies. They parted and flowed around her, schooling like fish. She stood tall, watching the way the edges of everything caught the light, caught the pastel flares and the dark navy shadows. She watched, the clothes flashing and catching in stutter stop motion- this wasn’t her memory. Mimi DeLuca was a beautiful, soft featured and full lipped with her hair caught into a high side pony and bangs a deliberate poof over blue lined eyes. She smiled, giving Isobel a little wave. “I can see why she likes you,” she said, cracking her gum and eyes going impish. “You’re a fighter. She needs one of those.”

“Who?”

Mimi squealed and the scene shifted into motion as she threw her arms out and tackled a tall blond boy with sad eyes and a sharp nose. “Jesse, hey, hi.” He tilted his head back, hefting her up and spinning her a little before depositing her back to her feet and starting to walk towards the school shoulder to shoulder. “Keep up, Jimmy!” 

The teenage Jesse Manes shook his head, hefting his bag over one shoulder higher and turning to look behind them, eyes sliding right through where Isobel was standing. He looked like Alex, all sharp angles and angry mouth, defiant and full of teen rage. “Yeah, Jimmy,” he smiled and for a moment he was soft. Someone jogged through her, battering at her as she reformed, watching a dark haired boy with broad shoulders and the kind of smile women couldn’t resist- deeply unaware of the affect his dimples had.

“Shut up, Manes.” Jimmy shoved at the blond boy, laughing and darting past them to grab the door, holding it open and gesturing for them to move inside. He had large dark eyes and a hawkish nose, square jaw and an easy confidence. In Mimi’s memory he glowed golden, warm and inviting. 

Older Mimi was standing at her shoulder. “We were so young once.” Isobel blinked at the way the scene froze, Mimi smiling beatific at where Jim Valenti was a teenager- holding the door for her with a dimpled smile. Jesse Manes wasn’t a monster yet, just a blond boy shaking his head at his friends as he stood between them and the press of people behind them. Isobel looked over and Mimi was herself again, older and wild haired in a long white dress. She looked lost and sad, mouth half open like the words wouldn’t come. “We were happy?”

“What happened?”

Mimi’s mind went dark, opening again to her standing in the spot behind the bleachers that everyone used to smoke or make out during school. She was walking slow, stuttered and halting like she didn’t like to look at this memory. Jesse Manes was sitting with a half castled cigarette between his fingers, staring out into nothing, face gone dark. There was a bruise that crawled under both eyes, smearing black and pulsing a little in the way the mindscape throbbed the light and dark. He had a white bandage over the bridge of his nose where it was swollen and split. There was another bruise blooming over his jaw and his knuckles were battered and bloody. Mimi settled in front of him, concern bleeding out of her and threading lighter notes into the black aura surrounding him. He seemed to be pulling the shadows close and tight like a blanket. 

“Jesse?” 

He turned his face up, eyes welling angrily as his mouth twisted. She watched the muscle in his jaw jump, working as he searched obviously for the words and came up wanting. He just pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. She reached out and he flinched back.

“I knew the day he found the truth,” Mimi told her, turning as the scene froze. “Something broke in him. Someone broke him.” She ducked her head. “We found out later. This thing breaks everything it touches. The pieces want to be together. The pieces need to be together.” She turned back and the scene skidded to life as she reached forward and placed a soft fingered touch to his wrist and he shuddered once and ducked his head to hide the way he sobbed.

Mimi froze and the whole scene seemed to flood with darkness, navy and sickly chartreuse peeling under the bleachers and Isobel didn’t want to turn. She didn’t want to turn but she could feel her there. She could feel the way those lost dark eyes bored into her mind, bored in and tried to pry her open. She knew if she turned she’d have to fight. “You’re a fighter,” Mimi’s voice echoed in her head- she sounded like Maria.

Isobel turned, dropping a shoulder and was caught in the dark stare, the dark desperate stare that held her. The woman was begging her, she was begging silently and it was so loud- the silence behind it. It crowded in, pressing against Isobel with a purpose- with a reason to keep moving. It pressed its silence and the weight of that stare against her, pushing and searching for something inside of her, searching for something specific. She could feel the moment something sparked inside her- it flared to life, shocking electric through her with a wild scream and she felt the way it crackled through her with heat and violence.

The mindscape lit up, strobing white like lightning cracking across the sky. Mimi froze. Jesse froze. Jimmy froze. The moments went fast and blurred, stacking on top of each other. The three of them huddled around a booth table and laughing into their milkshakes. The three of them startled silent as Jesse held out a piece of something alien. The three of them watching a rabbit scream as a shaved headed inmate stared at it, the sound inhuman and shocking as the animal’s skin peeled back, bleeding out in seconds and spasming into death. The three of them hushed around a pile of folders that detailed every alien and the way they could destroy with a thought. The violence in extrapolation. 

She saw them drifting together, close knit and careful. She watched them move through that prison. She watched the three of them hold Mimi up after she sobbed through another failed experiment- sharing the pain and the rage. She watched and watched and watched until the moment she simply saw Jim Valenti cup her face, Mimi’s point of view gone soft and scared as something (someone) touched her temples and the world went utterly still, spiraled out into a wild flail of time and space that distilled into one perfect image at the center: her daughter, 7 years old and watching Will Smith with a wide smile as he lit up the drive-in larger than life. Mimi smiled at the moment, eyes welling and heart broken as she simply let go.

The woman who held Isobel’s gaze nodded, lifting glowing hands to touch Mimi’s temples. It was a wordless explanation. It was the moment from the outside- Jim Valenti holding Mimi’s tear streaked face as the inmate touched her temples and Mimi went rigid. The break in her mind started there, splintering out and cracking in a spiderweb of agony that drifted through every cell of her body. Isobel knew that Mimi held onto that smile, that little girl’s smile and let that story become the focus of her entire life now.

Isobel was screaming, caught in the shattering maelstrom and stumbling back and away, falling and flailing for anything to keep her grounded. She didn’t know that she’d grabbed Maria’s forearm. She didn’t know that the picture frames were rattling in tight circles on the dresser, that the crystals were lifting off the ledge and shaking into flight. She didn’t know that the lights were flickering, humming and threatening with the surge of power. She didn’t know that her hands glowed red, wild and hot as she fell away from the gaunt woman who smiled like she could finally rest and disappeared, lost in the shattered wall of memories as Isobel Evans lit up.

She felt powerful for one breath. She felt electric and wild and above the storm happening around her, the calm in the eye of the hurricane. Maria was standing just next to her, arm caught under her palm and Mimi just past the screaming wall of chaos. She felt her hair lift up, billowing around her as she reached, reached out and found the well of sweet cool power to her right under her palm and screamed- screamed a full throated war cry as she punched through the chaos and grabbed Mimi by the front of her white dress and pulled. It felt like pulling someone through a wall. It felt like pulling her soul out of herself. It tore at her.

Isobel Evans was a fighter. She wasn’t about to let a little thing like _dying_ stop her.

“ _No!_ ” 

The chair barely held her as she slammed back into her body, staring at where Maria was standing over her, mouth open and yelling no again as the whole room settled silent in a sudden crash. The lights exploded as Isobel simply had a moment to wonder at the way her fingers were fading back to normal before she passed out.

**

Broken Arrow Taphouse had over 80 beerlines and a large square shaped man behind the bar who kept his arms folded over his chest, chatting amiably with the couple five seats down. The hostess had been a sweet tempered teenager with one crooked canine that lifted her top lip into a cute smirk as she pointed Kyle towards the bar. He’d taken a moment to luxuriate in the valet, as he’d pulled up to the casino- an impressive resort that seemed to slope up from the picturesque lake that sat at the base of the mountains. It rolled out an 18 hole private golf course and at least five different dining options. There was a row of bright tempting slot machines before the check in desk that looked similar to a concession stand at a nice theater. The woman behind the desk smiled sweetly at him and tucked her hair behind her ear before pointing him towards the Tap House.

Kyle chose a California IPA, wincing around the first bitter sip before sighing happily into snobbery and enjoying the notes of apricot and mango. He had a moment where he felt utterly normal, like he was winding down at a convention out of town. He turned the beer glass in a quick circle, watching the fingerprints he left on the glass and shifting to set his phone on the bartop next to him. He’d sent Arizona a simple _here_ when he’d arrived and had been left on read for a good fifteen minutes. He was half tempted to pay his tab and leave, feeling stood up, when a woman with long curling dark hair and the smell of sharp weed smoke slammed into the seat next to him, tossing an over large bag onto the bar and hopping into the stool. 

“I’m waiting for some-”

“I’m Arizona and you’re buying.” She gave him a quick perfunctory smile, raising a hand and twisting to smile brightly at the refrigerator shaped bartender. “Tiny! Hook me up with the trippel.”

“You going to pay your tab this time?”

“This guy is buying.” She gestured widely to where Kyle was sitting before settling back and staring at him. “What do you want, anyway?”

Kyle looked around, glancing at the long rows of wood tables that held families, tacos, and buckets of buffalo wings. There was a roll of paper towels sitting at each group of people, one unhurried waitress walking back to the side station with a credit card and a yawn. “This isn’t the most discreet.”

“Discretion is extra.” She scratched at the back of her neck and said a quick thank you when Tiny dropped her beer. “But, no one cares and no one is listening. That guy over there is trying to get in her pants, but she’s more interested in Tiny. The family back there is arguing quietly because the wife blew her portion of gambling money. I could tell you that the waitress thinks she might be pregnant and that the hostess is valedictorian, but that would be a stretch.” She paused, sucking the head off her top lip and narrowing her eyes at him. “You aren’t eighty. Why in the world do you still call people? Is it because you’re a Doctor?” 

There was a pause and Kyle frowned at his sculpin for a moment before just shrugging. “How did you?” He shook his head, rolling with it. Kyle was a guy who could roll with it. “Because a Master Sergeant in the military told me he doesn’t like communicating over phones and it made me think that someone might be listening. I’m a little paranoid now that I know the full extent of the surveillance set up around my hometown.” He shrugged. “So, texting seemed like the easiest thing to trace and now I regret the group text I started.” He leaned a little closer, tipping his chin up and giving her the small smile that worked so well on Nurse Gough when he needed a favor. “But, I also didn’t know how old you were. Michael said you were a faith healer and that sort of conjures images of old white dudes handling snakes and extorting the willing, not so much-” He gestured vaguely at her.

Arizona seemed like she was younger than he was by about five years, but there was a sharpness to her that made him wonder if it was less than that. She was wearing a battered black t-shirt that might have had a band on it at some point in its’ life, no bra he noted absently, and a pair of comfortable jeans with flared boot bottoms over black cowboy boots that were well loved. She had a silver bracelet studded with turquoise, matching rings, and a belt buckle that caught the loose fold of thin cotton shirt to glitter coyly at him. She kept a couple of braids around her face, curls hanging loose down her back and she was watching him just as closely. He was glad he’d worn comfortable khakis and a simple green polo. He looked the part. “Want to check my teeth?” she asked finally, smile going sardonic and amused as he lifted his eyebrows at her, catching her eyes.

“Open up,” he winked, wetting his lips and taking another sip of his beer. 

“Also, please go back to the part that vaguely alluded to military surveillance, because that’s way above my pay grade.”

“You going to let me meet your Grandma?” Kyle retorted, cocking his head and twisting slightly on the stool to face her.

“She’s not my Grandmother and it’s a little telling that everyone just assumed that she was my Grandmother like some fucking disney cartoon or some shit.” She snorted, leaning forward and looking around before whispering. “She’s my handler. I’m secretly an assassin trained by the government to take out threats that normal military forces can’t handle. Do you have the code word?”

Kyle blinked, sitting up and cocking his head at her for a moment before narrowing his eyes and squinting at her. “Are you- is that?” He looked around and then back at her. “You’re making fun of me.”

“Damn right, fucking conspiracy nut, good lord.” She sighed. “I was hoping to get at least two more beers out of you before having to leave.”

“I’m not a conspiracy nut.” Kyle gestured to all of him, from the top of his head to the soles of his comfortable oxfords. He was even wearing a belt.

“You just said you thought the government was surveilling your hometown. Next you’re going to start telling me about illegal aliens and the dark web or some shit like that.”

“Well, Aliens, maybe.” He sighed, rocking his head back and then shrugging once. “Look, I don’t know if you remember the sheriff that came to see you guys-”

“The hot one who started taking his clothes off?”

“He what? Wait, god damnit, why does everyone think he’s hot?” Kyle threw his hands up. “I swear to God, if I’d known that putting on a sheriff hat and a gun would make me sexy-”

“Scrubs work too, sweet heart. Don’t get upset.” She patted his knee, squeezing once before spinning the stool out and hopping to stand. “This was fun.”

“I wasn’t done.”

She smiled at him, snagging her purse with an audible clatter and draining the glass with a few quick swallows. “I was.”

He watched her duck into the strap of her purse, pulling her hair out and tossing a cheerful wave at Tiny who lifted two thick fingers in return. He watched her check her pockets out of habit and then turn, starting to walk away. He watched it in slow motion- his chance at answers sauntering away and he moved before he could think, grabbing her wrist. “Wait-”

It was a quick move, just a shift of weight and a flip and she’d broken out of his grasp, pushing through the break and grabbing his thumb to twist it around and dump him out of the stool as he followed the pressure, not wanting to break anything and hissing quietly on the floor. “Fuck, ow. I’m sorry. Fuck.”

“Don’t touch me.”

Kyle hissed, shifting his weight lower to relieve the twist of his arm and bending lower to the floor in the process. “Look, I know my Dad was smuggling aliens out onto the reservation. I just need to talk to your manager, okay?”

There was a pause and suddenly the threatening pressure released and Kyle snagged his arm back, cradling it to his chest as he looked up at her. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Kyle. Kyle Valenti.”

Arizona startled, eyes going wide as she straightened before tossing him an annoyed look. “ _Valenti_? Like _Jim Valenti_? You’re his son?” She shook her head and crouched, mouth a flat line that matched her brows. “Fuck man, lead with that next time. Idiot.” She held out a hand. “Come on. We’ve been waiting for you.”

**  
The whole room seemed to shudder to a stop, everything settling back down in a shocking shower of sparks as the overhead lights blew in time with the smaller floor light on the dresser by the wall. All of the picture frames went silent, one teetering precariously for a beat before tipping to tumble off and shatter. The noise was lost in the sharp blare of machinery choking on electricity and settling to smoke softly. Maria watched Isobel Evans smile at her once, face bloody from where she’d absently wiped at her nose. She watched Isobel smile, perfectly pleased as she managed to look triumphant and grateful before her eyes rolled back and she went boneless, hand finally dropping from where she’d been clutching Maria’s forearm. “Oh, you _bitch_.”

“Is your friend okay?” Mimi asked, concern flooding her voice as she looked around at the mess of her room.

The main alarms cut off Maria’s reply and she didn’t have time to think, only react. She shoved the trash can back next to the bed, smiled at her mother and held out a hand. “Mom, come on, let’s go for a walk.” She nodded a few times, eyes wide as she held the smile and heard the commotion from each room as the alarms started going off in a long line throughout the care facility. The medical monitors in Mimi’s room all black screened and smoking slightly, the lights sitting in little circles of shattered glass. It felt like a small bomb had gone off, which was pretty typical of any interaction Maria had with Isobel Evans. There was a frame on the floor face down that her Mother was reaching to pick up and all of the taped pictures were hanging at wild angles. The dream catcher over the bed was shredded, the taut lines plucked too hard and snapping like a guitar string. 

She was trying to figure out the easiest way to get Isobel up, settling finally for crouching down, getting both arms over her shoulders, head lolling against her face, blond hair catching on her lipstick before pushing up from her legs like lifting a full keg. She wobbled a little, groaning at the sheer size of her. “Fuck, you’re too big for this shit, Iz.”

There was a squeak of sneaker on the polished floors in the hallway and Maria knew she only had so long before there were too many questions. She heaved, getting both arms around Isobel’s narrow waist and holding her up. She hooked her chin over her shoulder, wetting her lips as she started turning, motioning to her mother to follow. Isobel groaned low, tucking her face against the curve of Maria’s neck for a second as she started coming back to consciousness. “Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Don’t puke,” Maria chanted, rubbing at the other woman’s back, overlarge sweatshirt bunching slightly. 

“I may puke,” Isobel managed, groaning the words and trying to lift her head.

“Nope, not happening,” Maria growled, grinning and hefting Isobel a little. “You can puke later, okay? Right now.” Each set of words was panted out as Maria supported Isobel’s weight and tried to navigate through the room to the hall. “I need. You. To pull yourself. Together.” She nodded a little, pushing Isobel against a wall and bracing, catching her breath. “Mom, put some shoes on okay? We’re going for a walk.” She blew out a breath, glaring at Isobel up close and out of focus as she watched Mimi slip on a pair of sandals. “You’re fucking heavy.”

“Oh my god,” Isobel managed and Maria could literally feel the ripple of indignant anger that flooded under Isobel’s skin, mirrored under her own and sparking a surge of strength. She narrowed her eyes at where Isobel was starting to come around, color coming back. “I am not fat.”

“I didn’t say you were fat,” Maria growled, eyes wide. “Jesus, no one would call you fat you idiotic elf princess, but you are like seven feet tall, okay?” She pinned Isobel with her hips, reaching to grab a box of tissues from the nearby dresser, wiping at the line of blood on Isobel’s face. “Pull your shit together.”

Maria blinked at the way she felt herself flush, utterly aware of how close they were in a moment of startled clarity. Isobel Evans was breathing hard, mouth dropped open and hair tangled against the wall as Maria held her up with one hand at her shoulder and a thigh wedged between Isobel’s legs, hips caught close and tight. She swallowed, blinking once and shook herself out of the breath that felt like it had taken a left at too much. Maria felt something coil like anger in her stomach, something hot and effervescent. “Come on,” she whispered after a moment, wetting her lips and aware of the way Isobel’s gaze flickered down like a physical touch. “Get your feet under you and put your arm around my shoulders, okay?”

The nurses were gathering in the hallway, working from the call desk and the rooms closest to check on each patient. Maria ducked under Isobel’s arm, hefting her up and starting to walk out the door, slow and measured as Isobel found her footing. “Down here!” A slim black nurse looked at her. “A fuse must have blown? The lights exploded?” She pointed behind her, grabbing her mother by the wrist at the same time and moving the three of them out of the way as the woman barked an order and started pointing from the call desk to the janitorial door to the room Maria was walking them away from. 

The place was controlled chaos and she moved them all through it with the ease of someone used to finding a path in a sea of drunks. She held onto her mother with one hand, Isobel with the other, fingers tight at her hip. Each room they passed had a set of smoking medical monitors and its own problems. There were about ten nurses on duty at all times and they were being assisted by the teenage staff that usually manned the cafeteria line or worked to put up the vibrant signs proclaiming this months activities calendar. She edged them around the call desk, the charge nurse, a competent older man with salt and pepper hair and bright red glasses barely looked at her, staring in shock at the line of computers that were dead- the smell of burnt plastic and ozone strong. Maria looked around, making a quick decision and headed for the main door.

She paused, hefting Isobel higher with a groan and casting a careful look around them to make sure everyone was distracted. Maria bumped the large plate button that would open the door with the hand that had her Mom’s fingers twined with hers. She was careful, ducking back as another set of nurses pushed past them down the hall where someone was starting to yell, a loud long wail like an aged toddler being told there was no more pudding. 

Maria used that as her moment to slip them into the lobby and then further through the front double doors and outside into the fresh New Mexico air. She paused to catch her breath on the sidewalk, the sound of sirens starting to be audible in the distance coming from the state road. They didn’t have much time until there were going to be too many people asking too many questions. Maria squeezed her Mom’s fingers. “Okay, just a little further okay?” She smiled before gritting her teeth and starting for the Volvo, stumbling across the open asphalt and picking up speed as the sirens moved closer. She managed to get to the car, letting go of her Mom to lean Isobel against the side, glad that the top she’d worn looked old and threadbare around the collar instead of something that would snag on the rust spots and patches of bubbling paint. She patted at her, not letting go entirely and holding her hip with one hand while she started shoving her hands in her own pockets for her keys. She tried front right, then left, then right again, swiping up and over her bra for odd lumps before checking her back pockets out of desperation before gritting out a frustrated noise. “Fuck. _Fuck!_ ” 

“Maria,” her Mom started.

“Not now, Mama. Just give me a second, okay?” She smiled vaguely at where Mimi was looking back toward the building.

“Maria.”

“Mom. Please.” The purse with her keys slung over the back of the chair in the room they’d just fled. She swore, violent and loud under her breath, eyes closed as she tipped her head back hoping for just one break. “Just one fucking break.”

“Now, this is convenient.” Maria wished that she could have said she was surprised when she felt the press of cold metal to the back of her neck and the sound of a man’s voice echoed by Isobel’s sharp gasp. Mimi moved both hands up and kept her gaze just behind where Maria was standing. “I was hoping to not have to make a mess.” Isobel choked once, bending away from Maria to dry heave violently. There was a sound, muffled, but it mirrored the way the metal pressed tight against her neck for a second. He’d sidestepped the splash of vomit. “Disgusting.”

Maria stayed utterly still, gun an amazing motivator. She turned slightly, catching sight of him in her peripheral, tall, black haired, sharp nose and high cheekbones, heavy hooded black eyes above a thin mouth. “Oh shit.”

Harlan Manes smiled at her in his way, just a quick flick of eyebrow and a twitch of his mouth. “Hello, Maria. So nice to see you again.” He turned the gun on Mimi, eyes never leaving hers. “Come with me, please.” There was a pause and he gritted his teeth,“Stop it.” He turned with a quick fluid motion and snapped the butt of the gun against Isobel’s temple. She crumpled silently to the ground. He sniffed, growling a low angry sound before pulling back to straight and giving her an approximation of a polite smile. “Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Latin is Seneca: There is no easy way from the Earth to the stars.
> 
> I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has taken the time out of their day to leave me a message or flail with me in general. This thing is a labor of love and y'all are all the midwives.
> 
> Specific and pointed thanks go to Hannah and Maria and Surabhi for their tireless and unwavering support and tense fixes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Not that this shit isn’t beautiful and everything,” Rosa said from about fifteen feet behind him, out of breath and pausing as she stepped over a fallen pine. “But maybe next time? Warn me that we’re doing some major backcountry deep woods teen novel heroine bullshit? Okay, Katniss?”
> 
> Kyle snorted, turning to shoot her an amused glance, eyebrows shooting up. “Were you even alive for those books?”
> 
> Rosa stopped. “Wait, there’s more than one?” She batted at the tree branch that slapped back towards her when she let it go, ducking under the feathery needles and sharp angry bark to point at him. “Seriously? _God._ ” The path wasn’t much more than a deer track through the pine forest surrounding the Eagle Creek cabins that snuggled close to a picturesque lake in the plateau from Round Mountain. Kyle had been listening to Rosa bitch and moan, muttering angrily through the underbrush as he picked their way forward, following the Garmin eTrex GPS satellite compass towards the string of coordinates Arizona had handed him, scribbled down on a little piece of beverage napkin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hover over for spanish translations.

“Not that this shit isn’t beautiful and everything,” Rosa said from about fifteen feet behind him, out of breath and pausing as she stepped over a fallen pine. “But maybe next time? Warn me that we’re doing some major backcountry deep woods teen novel heroine bullshit? Okay, Katniss?”

Kyle snorted, turning to shoot her an amused glance, eyebrows shooting up. “Were you even alive for those books?”

Rosa stopped. “Wait, there’s more than one?” She batted at the tree branch that slapped back towards her when she let it go, ducking under the feathery needles and sharp angry bark to point at him. “Seriously? _God._ ” The path wasn’t much more than a deer track through the pine forest surrounding the Eagle Creek cabins that snuggled close to a picturesque lake in the plateau from Round Mountain. Kyle had been listening to Rosa bitch and moan, muttering angrily through the underbrush as he picked their way forward, following the Garmin eTrex GPS satellite compass towards the string of coordinates Arizona had handed him, scribbled down on a little piece of beverage napkin. 

“Am I supposed to burn this after reading?” He’d joked, cocking his head and smiling a little.

“Yes.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Of course not seriously,” she replied, narrowing her eyes at him as if she was endlessly and utterly disappointed in him. “I thought Doctors were supposed to be smart.”

“Doesn’t mean we aren’t grade A dumbasses,” he’d replied, muttering under his breath as he pocketed the napkin.

“Well, I hope your hot dumb ass knows how to hike. You can leave your car at the cabins and then follow the path for a bit, but after that, you have to find it on your own.”

“So,” he wet his lips, following Arizona as she walked out of the Casino and into the parking lot. The flow of people at this time of night had them shifting and twisting through the push of bodies drawn to the glittering promise of won cash, free booze, and high stakes. “You think I’m hot?”

“Is this a rhetorical question?” She pulled her hair back, twisting it once and leaving it over her shoulder as she tossed him an easy once over. She was wearing flared leg jeans and the heels on her boots clipped easily over the tiled floors before softening onto the asphalt. She was shorter than him, but quick, talking with her hands as she moved. He wondered how many people would make it to the slots and realize their wallet wasn’t in their pockets anymore. He checked his watch was still on his wrist before jogging a little to catch up as she started across the parking lot. “Don’t forget the part where I also called you a dumbass.”

They walked in silence for a moment and he paused to look out over the large lake behind the building that nestled between the casino, the mountain, and the long well manicured golf course. At night the Casino glowed, a beacon to the weary as Arizona started digging through her purse for her car keys. There were rows and rows of careful Carollas and battered Cadillacs. A few Ford pickups rubbed irritated elbows with the Chevys. The music being pumped through the massive building warbled along the cement to tangle around their ankles, off kilter and just a tinkling distorted melody. She beelined for a huge brown Econoline monstrosity with airbrushed murals of deer and a nubile native woman on the side. 

He pointed. “You’re joking. Does it come with shag carpet and a rape whistle?”

“White people love cliches.” She shrugged and slapped at his hand. He lifted the other to touch the side, eyes wide and mouth dropping open. “Tomorrow. Be there after noon. Not before, because I won’t be awake and if you wake me up I may stab you.”

Kyle shook his head, breaking the spell of the incredible sight of the Econoline. He glanced to where she was looking up at him, expectant. “Hiking. Yes, right. I can do that.” There was a pause and they were just looking at each other, measuring in the white lights that poured from the front of the building, softened by the distance to where Arizona had parked. She was a beautiful woman under the sarcasm and sharp edges, large dark eyes and soft looking hair that fell in long waves like she’d just taken it out of braids. He huffed a little, rubbing the back of his neck and looking back across the expanse of parking lot to where the Valet was lit up. “Don’t wake you up, got it.”

Arizona smirked, shaking her head a little before opening the passenger side door. The front window was lined with a little bit of fringe and there was a compass ball glued to the dash. The interior smelled like burnt sage and weed with a sharper chemical strawberry lingering in the fabric. “Wear something cute.” She waved a general hand at his chinos and plain olive toned polo. “Not this.”

“I’m more than just a pretty face.”

She smiled as she hauled herself up and into the driver’s seat. “Prove it.”

So here he was, hiking through the backcountry of the Mescalero Reservation. Rosa had been tying her hair up into a loose bun somewhere just after dawn, watching him pull his bug out pack from the back of the beamer. She took one look at it, the black back country 60L made for long treks over distance, and started swearing in spanish under her breath as she walked back to the motel room. “No. No way.”

Kyle laughed, bending to get the pack up on his thigh and then around to distribute the weight over his shoulders, waist strap undone and waving to the empty lot as he jogged after her. “What? I thought you were the adventurous one.”

”Me estás tomando el pelo.” She didn’t even turn around, just pushed the door open and fell face first into the closest bed like an angry starfish.

”Si sólo es un paseíto,” Kyle muttered at her, smacking at her ankles with a laugh as he set the pack down on his bed. “You’ll have fun.”

”No soy tonta,” Rosa muttered, rolling onto her side and pouting at him. 

Kyle unbuckled the top flap, reaching to loosen the main pack and then tipping it on its back to unzip the mainline and grab out the boots that were packed away with a few pairs of socks, and his hiking clothes. He shook out the loose cream colored henley and didn’t look at her. “I mean, I could leave you here to sleep, if you want. All alone. Just you and the free HBO that kind of works. You know. Just you and your-”

“Vale. Venga. Voy. Calla de una vez. Idiota.” She pointed as he fished the little Garmin eTec out of the side pocket. “What’s that?”

“Satellite GPS.” Kyle started unloading the extra items that would just add unnecessary weight, setting them aside to make room for the water he’d be carrying for the both of them.

Rosa sat up, looking at him suspiciously. “Why? Why do you need a-”

“I got some coordinates. You know, secret location and all that. Apparently, nothing is just clearly labeled when dealing with Alien Conspiracies. Kind of annoying, really.” He shrugged and moved the first aid kit out, considered, and moved it back into the main compartment. “Dad used to take me hiking every summer. We’d take a whole week and just go out into the wild. It started pretty easy, you know?” He glanced over, wetting his lips as he watched her go still, hungry for information.

“My Dad taught me how to make milkshakes and fries,” she offered, casual as she rolled up to sit on the edge of the bed and peer over at what he was doing.

“Useful skills. I was learning how to start fires and dehydrate food so we wouldn’t eat nothing but ramen on the trail. It’s super salty, but sometimes you want something other than trail mix.”

“M&M’s with obstacles,” Rosa corrected him with a smile. She reached to pluck a ziplock bag that had a length of orange line.

He laughed and kept packing. “Yeah, exactly.”

About two hours into the hike she’d gone quiet, following after him in her heavy black boots and tight jeans. She was tucked into a borrowed hoodie and a beanie. He’d snagged the battered baseball cap for himself to keep the white winter sun from blinding him slowly. It was cold at first, easing into a loose body warmth that he kept tight against him. They’d started in the parking lot of the rental cabins and set out west then turned north to follow a creekbed that was starting to swell with the runoff from the white capped mountain. The trail was little more than a worn down scribble of red dirt that followed the low points between large red boulders and twisted under long overhangs. They’d splashed through a few sections, pausing to follow the GPS directions when the trail disappeared between rockslides and overgrowth. Two hours and she’d managed to keep up as he threaded through the wild. This part of New Mexico was scrubbier, wilder than the long stretches of careful manicuring around Roswell. Here, the desert shoved itself up a step, moving into the colder air to tumble in large rock formations to the plateau. He ducked under another branch, holding it back so Rosa could pass and waited. The GPS said they were maybe a ten minute walk, but the canyon was starting to get closer, the high walls of the rock cut by the tiny creek they’d been following growing tall. He glanced up, checking the weather with a quick eye. 

Getting caught here during a thunderclap could kill them. This was a natural line of defense for whatever they were moving toward. 

Kyle could feel the way the land was about to change, the long slow climb, the elevation gain catching the breath spindly in his chest. It caused Rosa to wheeze and pant behind him. He saw the graffiti just before Rosa did. He had only a moment to react, reaching out to catch her hand at the sight of the same bit of art, a triangle with three long edges that twirled into circles drawn in overlapping white paint, chipped and fading under the fresher bits. They’d turned around the edge of the rockwall and it was everywhere. It was layered on top of itself, painted in a long endless repetition until they saw where it had been simply carved permanently into the rock. It spilled off the sheer face and into the gravel below, built in small formations and rock piles.

“Oh shit.” Rosa gripped his hand with white knuckles, a tremor ran through her as they stared up the long line of the wall. There was a breeze that rippled through the straggling pines behind them, rustling the underbrush and kicking a few bits of gravel to bounce down the wall before crashing into the creekbed.

“I think,” Kyle started, turning to look at her and squeezed her fingers. “We’re close.”

“You could be saying that,” a voice called across the gulley. Kyle startled and shoved Rosa behind him, looking down the trail to where someone was standing in a clearing, hands tucked into his pockets. The man was wearing a pair of dark blue wranglers, tan work boots, and a dark blue coat over a faded flannel. He was an easy six foot with sandy blond hair and tanned features. The stranger was broad faced, broad shouldered, and had an unassuming strength to him. He smiled, closing one eye and giving them a little wave. “You must be Kyle.”

“We should go. We should go right now. We shouldn’t have come here,” Rosa started whispering, voice a little wild as she started grabbing at his pack to tug at him with her other hand. “Kyle.”

“Appearing out of nowhere doesn’t do much to make me trust you,” Kyle called, moving to keep himself between Rosa and the stranger. He had to shift his weight to keep balanced as her tugs grew more pointed.

“We did not come to seek you out.” The man shrugged. His accent was strange, thumping forward into his teeth while placing unnecessary emphasis on the second syllable of words. “I am here to get you through a hard part. I know, you can go. We have been doing most fine since your Father passed, but it would be nice to have new company.”

“You knew my Dad?” Kyle heard the way his voice went high with hope, clearing his throat and repeating himself at a lower tone. Behind him, Rosa went quiet and he could feel the way she peered over his shoulder at the man. 

“Yes. He is a big deal out here.” The man glanced to the side, into the line of trees to his right and nodded. A little girl poked her head from around the rock. She was maybe five or six, but had the same tanned features as the man, with the same wide blue eyes that sat in his face. Her dark hair was kept in two long braids. She scampered to grab the man’s leg, clinging to him and watching where Kyle and Rosa were standing with a gleaming curiosity. 

“She’s scared, Dad.”

The man dropped a hand, palming her head easily and watched Kyle with a shrewd look. “They will not hurt us. So then we will not hurt them.” He lifted his chin and Kyle caught a dimple in the smile this time. “Correct?”

“Yeah.” It was an uneasy truce, but it was a truce.

“Good. I am Levi. Welcome to Granalith.” 

**

“Get up, Squirt,” Hunter muttered, tossing him a crutch as he bent to start unlocking the chain from the u-bolt in the floor. “Try to hit me with that thing and I will lay you out. Don’t care if you’re all crippled and shit now.” The chain rattled in a soft near chime as it fell to the floor, the lock a flat clatter after. Hunter crouched, forearms draped over his knees as he watched Alex with a plain dark gaze. He grinned, dimple appearing at the corner of his mouth as he wiggled his eyebrows at him. “That’s your own damn fault for getting blown up.” 

“Good morning, Alex. How’d you sleep, Alex? So nice of you to not complain about the current arrangement while I do everything our shit head father asks of us like the bootlicker I am, Alex.”

Hunter coughed a laugh, eyes crinkling up at the corners as he reached out, scruffing a hand through Alex’s black hair as he shoved to his feet. “Not like you asked me how I was doing, either, dipshit.”

“How are you today, Hunter?” Alex eased to standing, groaning audibly as his body unfolded, ache in his hips relaxing as he twisted and stretched. 

“I’ll be better when I get to leave in a few hours,” Hunter said, voice going noticeably softer, muttered and low. Alex’s skin prickled and he didn’t glance over even though he wanted to. “Dad’s going on a trip with an old friend. Harlan brought her in about thirty minutes ago.” 

“Who’d he bring in?” Alex wet his lips, squeezing the handle of the crutch harder as he shifted it away from himself, lifting and stretching his right leg back to catch the residual edge of his shin against a palm with a groan, eyes rolling a little at the delicious warm stretch.

“An old friend.” Hunter repeated like Alex was being especially dense. He crossed thick arms over his chest, lifting a shoulder as he waited. He was being patient, letting Alex find the space in his body before they started moving. Alex finally looked over and Hunter tapped three fingers against the tattooed Semper Fi on his bicep in a quick pattern- two long, two short, repeat. There was a moment of cold shock fear that sank into Alex like he’d been dropped into a tank of ice water. 

“Is that all?” He kept his voice light, sassy and annoyed as he glanced over his shoulder to the door behind the rack of servers.

“You’ll see.” Hunter clapped a hand against his left shoulder and pointed to the second door on the left. “You get to have the ensuite now. Upgrade.” Hunter kept himself close enough as they walked that he could block any attempt at escape or fight, pace silent as they moved to the door. He set his hand on the glass next to the door, the beep a soft counterpoint to the way it unlocked and slid open on fresh track hinges. They had a moment as they moved through the doorway where Hunter pressed close, mouth near his ear. “You have fourteen hours.” 

Alex didn’t react, simply kept walking as Hunter moved back as they stepped through the doorway. The blindspot was gone and the hallway seemed eerily familiar. It was lined with glass fronted cell doors, each one left open except the third down on the right. Each cell was darkened, lights hanging in the hallway and bleeding the clear white fluorescent into the threshold. Each door had two lights above inset into the cement- the doors themselves at least five inches thick with solid steel barriers and rebar locking mechanisms that would jut into the wall as they closed. “This is much nicer than Caulfield,” he said quietly, letting the statement move the conversation open and full of possibilities.

“Well, someone shifted the timeline up on Dad.” Hunter stopped across from the only door that was closed, eyebrows flicking up as he gestured to the opposite doorway that was open. “In you go.” 

Alex shuffled in, glancing between the small metal toilet in the far wall, the metal shelf of a bed with a thin pallet and the completely bare walls that were the same industrial gray cement as the floor and ceiling. There were no windows, a small sink in the corner by the toilet, and only the one door. There was a single wrist sized grate installed in the center of the room, the entire floor sloping slightly toward it. Alex had a moment of realizing this was so the entire cell could be cleaned by a single stream of water flowing from the top to the bottom, and had a dizzying flash of pink bloody water being washed away. 

He sat on the metal bed shelf, the edges round and smooth under his thighs. He watched Hunter toss his crutch out the door, eyes following and catching on the doorway across the short hall. It was closed, light on overhead and he startled, fingers clutching the bed frame as he saw two bodies behind the thick glass. 

“Don’t react,” Hunter breathed, knowing at the way he’d gone rigid that he’d seen. “Each cell is monitored. Putting yours on a loop so you won’t have much time, but enough to get it done. Sit for half an hour when I leave. Don’t move. Don’t lie down, just sit and stare at the wall.” 

Alex didn’t look away from the cell across the hall as he felt the chain connected to his wrists move, shifting to pool in the center of the small room. He heard Hunter lock him down and glanced, holding his brother’s gaze. He wet his lips, nodding with the smallest move of his chin. “You’re on your own, Squirt. You know what happens if you don’t get it open the right way.”

“What will I do without your sparkling wit for company?” Alex said aloud, leaning back and cocking his chin to a sassy tilt.

Hunter winked at him, kicking at his left foot and reaching to threaten Alex’s hair again. Alex batted his hands away, the range of movement startling after what felt like days with a short leash. “I’m sure you’ll find a way to keep busy. I’m off to see what Flint is up to.”

“Oh, tell him I said hi,” Alex snarked.

Hunter’s mouth shifted from the fake smile he gave to almost everyone to something a little hopeful, a little real. “Tell him yourself.” He gave Alex a little salute. “See you in a bit, _Sir_.”

**

"Stop, Liz. _Wait._ Damnit." Michael ducked another pencil, throwing her a stern glare as the muscle worked in his jaw. "Stop _throwing things_ at me."

"Years! Literal actual _years_ you fucking _fuck_."

"Li-" Another pencil and this one he stopped midair, raising both eyebrows and tilting his head questioningly. "Are you done?"

"If I say yes will you let me hit you with a pencil?"

"That is literally the dumbes-" A pencil bounced off his chest and she grinned.

““Te lo mereces.”” Liz pointed at him across the lit table in the basement bunker. There was a collection of labeled samples to the right, papers littered across the top, half lit as she planted both hands and shook her head at him. “You had a new fucking element. A. New. Element.” She raised both eyebrows, leaning forward to push her point home. “A new fucking element for years and you’re just now casually mentioning it in the frame work of oh hey things that help us aliens do stuff like not hurt? You-”

“Liz.” 

“Can you imagine how much time we’ve _wasted_ while you just casually have a new element hanging around.” She started picking up pages of print outs, the readings useless after repeated trials. “Oh, hey, you know that thing where we’re trying to figure out a way to boost your powers?” She pointed at him, eyes going wide as she flailed a hand up toward the ceiling in her frustration, hair flipping a little. “Right. That thing that can bring _Max_ back?” She threw a page at him, starting to move quickly from shocked to irritated and settling easily into anger. “Are you seriously going to sit there and say this is the first time you remembered?”

Michael tucked both lips over his teeth, glowering down at the table before tilting the look at her, eyes wide and clear. “Of course it wasn’t.”

“Then what the fuck, Michael.”

“You’re a _biochemical engineer_ with three degrees, Liz. If you know how to put us together then you know how to take us apart.” He planted both hands on the table, something she was still getting used to seeing. “I’m sorry if the word _vivisection_ doesn’t conjure specific and graphic memories for you, but it does for me, okay?” He blew out a long breath, turning to look away and out over the small space in the bunker. She could almost feel him counting the books lining the shelf on the back wall as he took measured breaths. “One of the first memories I have after coming back here was sitting in that stupid alien museum on a school field trip and hearing about the alien autopsies, okay?” He started tapping a thumb nervously against the wood.

“I’m not going to-”

“You say that, but I don’t really have a lot to go on for trusting you okay? Like yeah, Max likes you a lot, but you also made something that almost killed Isobel. You’re not the most trustworthy person and it’s not like I haven’t had people who promised to take care of me just... not.”

“You literally threatened me with a knife!” She threw her hands up, eyes wide. 

“I just _really_ like cake, okay.” He blinked at her, tongue caught between his lips as he paused.

Liz broke first. The sound of the giggle that she slapped a hand over echoing in the close space. She paused, eyes going wide and a little worried before she just huffed a laugh and tilted her head at him. “Chocoholic.”

He grinned around a loose shrug. “I’m not that great at threats.” He sniffed, pushing his curls back from where they were flopping over his brow and looked at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” He tapped his fingers against the table and rolled his head on his shoulders. “I’m _sorry_. You know now.” He shook his head, closing his eyes and smiling sadly at the table top before talking out the side of his mouth. “I guess, if people are going to destroy us, it’ll be the people we love.” He made a face that was an approximation of a smile, just pulling his lips back from his teeth and Liz reached over, covering his fingers to squeeze lightly. He tucked a thumb over her fingertips and nodded once before bending to pick up the pencils she’d thrown at him in her ire. “I’m keeping these,” he told her.

“Fine.”

There was a silence that stretched between them like taffy, folding over itself and pulling taut again. He shuffled the papers in front of him, glancing to where the tarp was covering the table he kept in the far end of the bunker. She followed his gaze before rolling her eyes and staring up at the ceiling. “There’s more isn’t there?”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes, nodding once around a grimace.

“What.”

He pointed to his right. “I have the console from the crash that I’ve been rebuilding from any pieces found over the last fifteen or so years.”

Liz covered her face before pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing. “We have got to work on your communication skills, Guerin.”

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, jeans slipping low on his hips as he shrugged, face a mockery of innocence. “Probably,” he conceded. “Given my track record.”

The fans kicked on just then, startling her with a long scrape of noise before the vents flipped open, a wave of fresh cool air pressing across the space. She hadn’t realized how stuffy it had gotten, the air warm and close like a blanket that curled around them as they worked. He moved around the table, waving her over with a loose hand. He started pulling at the tarp, pushing and flipping it with careful fingers. “I think it’s like a console,” he told her.

Liz watched as the soft looking glass lit up, rippling with concentric circles that spread gold symbols across the surface, entranced. It was fluid and oddly familiar, like the way the handprint had rippled with colors after Max healed her. It reminded her of the echo of him in her mind, the echo of Max that slipped into her sighs like water. She started to reach out, pausing and curling her fingers up right before she would have skimmed her fingertips over the golden smooth surface. “Is it safe?”

“I have no idea.” He settled his hands on it and the writing lit up again, gold and glowing before rolling back to a quiet layer of waiting color. “It’s so far beyond anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what I’m doing, just that the pieces... they need to be together. It wants to be whole.”

“You’re talking about it like it’s alive.” 

He pet the glass the way some people stroked their pet cat, eyes fond as it rippled under his touch. “It... it feels like it’s close. Like maybe some sort of alien AI? I don’t know. I just think maybe it will talk to other alien tech.” He paused, thumb sketching little earthquakes of gold on the surface as he watched her. 

“Like...” she inhaled sharply and looked at him. “You think it can talk to the pods. Talk to Max.”

“Yeah.” He nodded once. 

“¡Dios mío!”

**

Maria had explored the entirety of the seven foot squared cell. It wasn’t hard. There was a metal shelf with a rounded edge that she’d managed to heave Isobel onto, settling the other woman in some approximation of comfort. She’d gone to the door, the interior a mirror that reflected the room back at her. She could see the way it went doubled against her fingertips- proof that it was a two way mirror. Someone could stand on the other side and stare in at them. Someone could be there right now taking notes on a little pad with quick fingers, eyes gone cold and clinical. She couldn’t feel anything but the soft quiet of Isobel asleep in the cell, the storm of her dreams felt far off and subsumed by the blackness. 

Harlan had gotten them into the car easily, heads hooded like hawks. Maria doesn’t think she’d ever forget the blinding wild fear that ate at her from the inside as she felt the heat of her own breath reflected back at her. She wouldn’t be able to forget the way her mind had tried so hard to catalogue the twists and turns of the drive. She’d been trying to focus past the close kept weave of the hood, the world gone shades of white, gray, and black. She’d tried. She’d tried to study the way her weight shifted, sliding around in the back seat of the non descript Ford Taurus that he’d loaded them into. She doesn’t think she’d be able to forget the soft high sound of fear on her mother’s breath coming from the front seat in little pants. 

She had held on to Isobel, kept her limp form tucked close with desperate fingers. She could almost feel the other woman in the back of her head, a steady pulse of quiet black static. She could hold on to that quiet as a place to shove her fear, a place to keep her from drowning in the panic.

“Where are you taking us?” Mimi asked him so many times, over and over. “Harlan. Where? Where are we going?”

He’d simply kept driving, humming to himself, humming the melody of a song only he could hear. 

Maria had settled into the way the light flickered over the fabric of the hood, feeling the way the noise of it was so surprising, the constant shift and rub of her hair, the way it crinkled against her ears, the sound of her breath as she tried to take long slow breaths. She was fighting the panic with calm. She was fighting in the only way she knew how. Isobel was slumped against her, the weight a constant reminder that she wasn’t alone in this. She found herself reaching and gripping the edge of the over large sweatshirt Isobel had been wearing, rubbing the edge between her fingers, the heat of her skin so close to her knuckles.

The light disappeared, flicking past them now in quick orange increments as they slowly slid lower. Underground, they were underground now. The car had slid to a quiet stop, the sound of Harlan unbuckling his seatbelt almost as terrifying as a gunshot in the quiet. Harlan cracked his door, the new car so soft and quiet as it opened. “If you fight me, I’ll kill her.”

Maria had taken a round wet breath that caught high in her throat. She didn’t know who he was talking to. She didn’t need to know who he was talking to. She _believed_ him. He was cold, a knife edge in her mind that drew blood without hesitation. Tools were only as dangerous as the person wielding them. There was a point in horror movies where the heroine was shaking, listening down a hallway for some sign, some indication of where the villain with the axe or knife was. Her villain was in quick oxfords, the sound of his heels expensive on the concrete outside. She’d gotten the impression of a suit, the suggestion of something bland and well cut before the terror of the hood had begun. 

She listened to the footsteps, the way they crept past her window. Harlan left the door open. The car chime kept dinging. It was pinging in little soft notes as a reminder that the door was ajar. Harlan was out of the car, the door open, and the car was playing a soft little noise as Maria’s heart sped up. Maria stuttered in the moment, mind unable to move past something as mundane as the little alarm playing a soft note. She was choking in this fear, drowning in it. She couldn’t even recall the terror of the dead body from what seemed like months ago, but was only days. She couldn’t recall this sort of fear, this cloying red hot primal thing that clenched her entire body up into a repressive fight or flight. She grabbed for Isobel, clinging to her arm as the steps moved behind and around, echoing through the space- large and cavernous. She panted through her teeth, tiny short breaths that were filled with tears and terror. She held on until the door clicked open and she realized he’d never been talking to her. 

“Come on, Mimi.” Harlan’s voice was the same quiet deep tone as the rest of the Manes men. She remembers the way he’d always been so utterly polite, charming the world. He’d been tall and elegant, precise and fast. She remembers watching him play football and the violence that would sometimes boil up and over, spilling out into broken bones in the grass. There were always screams under the Friday night lights. “Be a good little bird.” 

The second click of seatbelt signaled her mother exiting the car. Mimi didn’t say anything. There were no words of encouragement. She simply followed and Maria was left in silence. She strained to find their footsteps as they moved away. She strained, a slow and continuous tremble rattling her hollow before the sound of their steps simply disappeared.

“I need you to wake up now, okay?” Maria whispered, face turning to where the brush of hoods seemed loud as tearing canvas. “Isobel. Iz. Please. I need you to wake up now. I need you to do that thing where you’re bitchy and snarky, okay? I need you to be a badass. I need. Please, Isobel.” She was huffing the pleas into the quiet, under her breath and hurried. “I _need_ you, okay?”

The door next to her opened suddenly and she’d screamed, short and sharp under the hood. It felt like breaking, but she’d kicked and fought a little at the hands that came in, dragging her out. “Stop it. Jesus. Fucking hell, Maria, cut it out. I don’t want to hurt you, okay?”

“Flint?” 

“Shhh,” he cautioned, and she stilled, reaching out for him and grabbing at his hands as he pulled her out of the sedan.

“Flint? What the fuck? What the fuck is going on? Why are you- what?” She stood in the spot she’d found her footing, hands out from her sides slightly as she listened to him heft and haul Isobel from the back of the car. She heard the low pained moan, feminine and velvety. “Is she okay? Where did Harlan take my Mo-”

“Damnit, Maria. Shut up, okay?” Flint growled, voice going strained as she heard the sound of something being heaved up. He was carrying Isobel. She felt him take her hand, gripping it with warm dry palms as he started walking, gait thrown off by the weight over his left shoulder. “Just do what he says and be quiet. You weren’t supposed to be here.”

She bit her lip, trailing after him as the light shifted. She kept her steps careful, scuffing her feet along the floor in a shuffling slow step. Flint would mutter things like “Step” or “Duck” from time to time before there was a low beep and a door slid open. It sounded like something out of Star Trek, hissing and futuristic. She’d waited, heartbeat deciding to slow finally as they moved through the twisting halls. She could hear his boots now, the rubber squeaking intermittently as the flooring changed. She could hear the slight tap of Isobel’s hands against his clothes as she flopped in time with his steps. She couldn’t pay much more attention than that, moving to hold his hand with both of hers, finding a strange comfort in being led. She clung to him.

“Watch your step. There’s a lip.” There was a heavy thud and a slight clatter of metal against metal, slippery and sibilant as a gold chain touching steel. The hood was tugged away and she blinked, eyes adjusting to the sudden flood of light. He looked tired, eyes sunk into his tan face, the scar on his forehead faded from the years between the last time she’d seen him and now. He held her gaze, touching her jaw with gentle fingers before nodding once. “Just do what he says and you might-” He cut off, shaking his head slightly and stood.

Maria watched Flint Manes put the soldier back on, watched him go blank around the eyes and straight through the shoulders. She watched him straighten into the part and toss her a quiet dark look, eyebrows calm. “Just do it, okay?”

She nodded and he stepped back, reaching to his left and the door slammed shut with a quiet slide, the mirror slipping into place. Maria blinked at herself, hair wild around her face, clothes disheveled and makeup tracking down her cheeks in pale rivulets cut with darker mascara flakes. She didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror. She didn’t recognize this terrified little girl with the wild hair and the constant tremble, but she did recognize the fall of blonde hair behind her. 

Isobel was on her back on a metal shelf that had a slight indentation in the middle, reminiscent of the tables in morgues she’d seen on TV. She blew out a breath, focusing in on what was in front of her to be done. The other girl had a streak of blood crossing her brow, the split in her hairline bleeding sluggish around a bruise going vivid and swollen in the bright overhead light. She looked pale, eyes sunk a little into her face, lips colorless, but her chest rose and fell in easy rhythm.

The cell was seven feet by seven feet and Maria sat on the edge of the metal pallet, reaching to pet Isobel’s hair back. There was a small sink jutting out of the corner next to the small metal toilet. She caught sight of the camera high in the ceiling, red light blinking in slow time before clicking off. She moved and it lit up again, blinking at her from the corner. She exhaled, slow and careful before grabbing the bottom hem of her shirt and tugging it off. Her tank top was a pale pink, a counterpoint to the darker rose shirt she’d been wearing. She’d lost her flannel in the car from where it had been tied around her hips. She stood, wetting the shirt in the sink and moving back to start cleaning Isobel’s brow. “Okay, just you and me now. I really need you to wake up, okay?” 

Isobel didn’t answer.

**

They walked down the gulley, following the quick skipped jumps the little girl made from boulder to boulder- her hand tight in her Dad’s as they moved. The high cliff wall loomed lazily to the west on their left, the right hand side of the creek going wetter, shaded by a grove of pine that was starting to push up out of the rock and thicken into something near a forest. A few bold Aspen kicked white bark between the blue shaded fir. 

Rosa hadn’t let go of his hand, so Kyle swung the weight of their knuckles slightly and glanced over at her. She hadn’t stopped staring at the man, Levi, either. She was watching the way he kept careful tabs on where the little girl was at all times. She watched the way he smiled brightly when she jumped, splashing purposefully into the small eddied current, water soaking the hem of her little jeans.

“Where are we going?” Kyle finally asked, following sedately behind and shifting the pack to redistribute the weight, the straps lifting enough to let a cool burst of air soothe the sweaty line they’d pressed into his shirts.

“Granalith!” The little girl bent, picking up a stone from the creek bed before hurrying over to where Kyle was walking, holding it up for him. “It’s ours.”

Kyle took the stone, turning it over and inspecting it with a prodigious amount of care, eyes narrowed as he ducked to look closer. The weight of the pack keeping a stretch on his shoulders. Rosa let go of his hand then, crossing her arms over her chest as he moved the stone from one hand to the other before handing it back to her. His eyebrows shot up, impressed. “Don’t think it’s gold, but it’s very shiny.”

“Of course it’s not gold.” She laughed at him, rolling her eyes and scampering back to where her Father was standing. “It’s most likely igneous rock from the precambrian shift in the plates.”

Kyle startled, glancing at Levi, eyes wide. The other man shrugged. “She is very smart for her age I am told.”

“How old is she?”

“Five and seven months.” Levi glanced over at Kyle, turning away from the creek and starting into the trees. There was a marker hammered into the trunk of the closest fir, just a small repetition of the triangle peaking into circles. The path was softer, covered in fallen pine needles and a few dried cones that the girl kicked merrily to bounce down the path. “She is the first.”

“Your first?”

Levi nodded. “Mine yes, but also she is ours.” 

“You’re an alien,” Rosa’s voice sounded accusing, carrying from behind him where she’d paused at the mouth of the trail, still lit by the watery winter sunshine that poured into the gulley. She looked angry and unsure, chin defiant as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Kyle was already in the shadowed woods, turned to look back at her. 

“Antaran, yes.” Levi didn’t pause, simply held a hand out to take the pine cone his daughter plopped into his palm. He inspected it before handing it back. “There are more. We...” He paused, visibly searching for the right words. The little girl paused, staring at him as he stared back. They were communicating. Kyle was struck by it, the way they were speaking without speaking and he took a half step back, the fear that lingered in Rosa seeping just slightly against his skin. “We were prisoners,” he finished, nodded at the way the word felt in his mouth. “Now we are free.”

He started down the path again and Kyle glanced at Rosa. She shook her head a little, eyes wide as she dug in where she stood in the sunshine. Kyle grabbed the pack straps and jogged slightly back to meet her there. 

“I don’t want to go. I don’t trust them.”

“I get that, but we have to follow. They know what-”

“Your Dad was a great guy, Kyle, but this isn’t him. This is _them_. One of _them_ killed me.”

Kyle blew out a breath and looked around, the small sign tacked to the tree and the way Rosa was afraid and alone in the sunlight. “My Dad was a good man. He wouldn’t have left them here if they were a threat. There’s kids, Rosa. This is different. It feels different. I saw, I saw what happened at that prison, okay?” He reached out offering her his hand again. “It was bad, worse than I can even imagine, but he died to protect something. I thought he died to protect us,” he watched her startle. He had finally just said it out loud, said that they were siblings. He’d acknowledged it outside of the vague. “You and me. I thought he was trying to protect us from whatever he’d gotten into, but I think. I think maybe it was to protect _this_.”

“He had a code.” Rosa blew out a breath and wiped at her eyes before grabbing his hand.

“Yeah.”

“That’s so dumb. God. Of course he’d call it a fucking _code_.”

Kyle grinned at her. “He was a bit dramatic.”

She rolled her eyes. “You think?”

“We had to get it from someone.”

“God. Fine. Okay.” She took a long breath, face going determined. “Si me muero otra vez, te perseguiré por todas partes.”

“Deal.”

“Where’d you pack those sour snake things?” she asked, ducking behind him to manhandle the pack’s outside pockets as he started walking again, following Levi into the dappled dark.The trail shifted from right to left, climbing at a steep grade in a quick switch back that made his thighs ache and Rosa wheeze angrily through muttered curses in two languages. He reached up, gripping the edges of boulders to pull himself higher until they broke out of the forest into a sunny glade.

The meadow was green and colorful with little pinwheels pressed into the ground around a long plain gray mobile home that sat up on cinder blocks. There was a small deck built onto the front, two mismatched plastic lawn chairs empty where they sat side by side. A small cluster of trees stretched longer branches back and forth before a small gravel drive slid downward to another mobile home. He counted ten small houses, a few rusted out cars, and one large covered pavilion in the center of the cul-du-sac. It was quaint, shabby looking, and well loved as it rode the visible poverty line. 

There was a small group of people standing around a familiar brown Econoline, laughter stuttering to a stop when they arrived. There were about thirteen people, different heights and ages, but none over thirty, making Levi the oldest while the youngest looked about fourteen with wild curly hair and dark skin. A black boy with broad shoulders and long arms dropped his hands, frisbee tapping against his thigh. A blonde white girl turned, smile fading off her face as her eyes went worried. None of them matched: red hair, black, brown, blond, curly, straight, wavy, skin tones ranged from a ruddy pink to a warm black that reminded him of a magazine ad. Kyle could only stare, slipping his shoulder down to ease the pack to the ground. “Oh fuck.”

“You made it!” Arizona gave him a little wave from where she was leaning against the open side of her van. The wind blew her hair a little, tossing it over her shoulder. The van was open, the lights on inside and a beat of a newer pop song humming across the distance with a deep bass note. She gave him a slow once over, mouth twisting crooked before tilting down. “Much better.” She winked and pointed at the blue sided coleman cooler. “You better grab a drink. Probably gonna need it.” She paused, narrowing her eyes at Rosa. “Who’s your friend?”

“She’s my sister.”

“Damn Valenti, you _were_ a dog.” Arizona smiled, welcoming Rosa too. “I’d give introductions, but we should probably go to the Long House for that.”

Kyle could feel himself visibly boggling as Levi snagged his daughter, kissing a slim woman with dark eyes, freckles, and softer black curls on the temple before turning to look at them. “Your Father saved us all.” He gestured vaguely around the crowd who stared at them with his chin. “We have been waiting for you.” He shook his head, like it wasn’t quite right.

“Hoping you’d show up,” the little girl corrected.

“Wait, there’s a _road_? We could have just driven here? Oh my god, you _suck_.” Kyle couldn’t help it; he started laughing, the whole situation edged into ridiculous at the indignant sound of Rosa’s voice.

**

Alex had been watching carefully, counting minutes in his head for an extended period before he’d finally taken a breath and leaned forward, checking the coiled chain where Hunter had locked it into the grate. It was a pretty basic cabled padlock, metal body a shaded bronze finish over the wide base and heavy steel cord latch He’d left the door open and the light off. The shadow thrown from the hallway lights stopping short in the shadow. There was a camera perched in the top right corner but the red light didn’t blink, a simple gleaming eye that watched him. He kept his gaze locked on the wall while he counted. Aware of the red gaze. He kept time, counting in a low beat with his breath, with his heart until the red light had snapped off, five long breaths and it had flickered on again, long and patient red.

Alex rolled into motion, moving off the pallet with a quick hop and settled on the floor. He flipped out the tool the Hunter had slipped him, a simple leatherman with multiple attachments that he started checking, thumbing them out and back, cataloguing each before settling on the smallest thin allen wrench. He flipped the lock into his lap and stared across the hall. Maria was moving around the cell. He could see the way she was feeling the walls, following any crack or crevice with careful fingertips. He watched her touch the edges of the sink, the toilet, the space where the pallet was embedded in the wall. She searched with a single minded method that he took a second to admire before he watched her reach the door. She looked out, eyes not seeing him where he sat, but something else. These doors were different from the ones in Caulfield in one simple way. There was no view of the outside, no view to something that could breed hope. 

His father was a quick learner when he had to be.

The view was pantomime, silent and only the guesswork of movement. He startled as hard as Maria did when Isobel bolted awake. Maria had jumped into motion, spurred to reach and coax Isobel back to laying down, arguing with her as she knelt at her side. He watched them talk, wishing it wasn’t sound proof before he felt the first tumbler inside the lock click, kicking open with a sigh of relief. He dropped the lock, dragging the chain with him as he pushed up and scooted toward the front of the cell. His hands still manacled together and gripping the leatherman tightly.

His crutch was sitting outside the door, tossed there like useless trash. Hunter was planning moves in advance. He’d put on a show and Alex blew out a breath before ducking and glancing down the hallway to the right. It stretched for two cell doors before ending in what looked like a blast door. He glanced up and then down the other way in the next breath. The ceiling was reinforced cross hatched rebar and cement, metal i-beams visible with heavy riveting that steepled overhead and moved down the hall like a strange ribcage. The hall continued for twelve more doors, ending in deep shadows and another blinking palm code that opened another set of blast doors. 

Across the hall the girls were bickering, hands flicking in angry jabs as Isobel rolled her eyes and shoved back to sitting, wincing visibly as Maria threw her hands up. He watched as Isobel steadied herself, gaze focused on the door that Maria waved at and he froze, panicking at the sight of that narrow eyed gaze that Michael got when he was about to move something. The same look he got when he was about to do something stupid and brave.

Time stopped. He felt the way the cell seemed to fade away in his panic. The hallway was silent, the scream welling in him caught somewhere just under his heart. He remembered the fear, the inescapable and overwhelming fear of finding Michael in the alarms, the claxon bright and deafening. The fear of losing him in fire and concussive blasts. He’d lost too much already. Alex couldn’t listen to the endless warning sirens. Not again. He couldn’t face the crack in another glass door that caused the death of Michael’s family. He couldn’t and he shoved all of the panic and fear and worry into a directed mental scream. 

Alex did the only thing he could think of, closed his eyes and screamed _NO_ as loud as he could in his mind.

Both Maria and Isobel froze, heads whipping to the door and staring in mute confusion. He saw his name on Maria’s lips like a question. He saw the moment Isobel reached back out, felt the question of her thought and took a deep breath, nauseous and afraid before burying it all underground and letting her in.

**

Alex Manes was sitting on the ground just outside the door, the mindscape a long smoothed hallway covered in cell doors that were simply blank mirrors reflecting infinity in a slow and constant crawl. The entire space felt worn meticulously smooth, the edges blurry and indistinct except where Alex was sitting, staring at Isobel with piercing dark eyes and a determined mouth. He was watching her and she looked around, confused for a moment at the utter and complete silence that sounded simultaneously so loud like fabric run heavy over a microphone to muffle the conversation.

“Don’t.”

Isobel cocked her head, eyes narrowing as she pushed a little, feeling the scene wobble like she’d pressed against plastic painted like a flimsy mirror. It wobbled, edges wrinkling before steadying again and he tilted his chin up. He was sitting on the ground and she felt so tall. She towered over him as he simply tilted his head back, chin up and held her gaze.

“Don’t break the glass, Isobel.”

He was speaking without moving his mouth, words carefully enunciated like he was focused completely on making sure it was clear and precise. She wanted to laugh, wanted to tell him that she could fling the door to the side. She could pry it from it’s flimsy hinges. She could feel the weight of it like a gnat and she would just push her fingers against it until it shatt-

“No. Don’t break the glass.” 

He opened one door, the noise deafening as she glanced to the right and saw Michael beating against a blast door like the one that held her. She watched him scream and shake, beating with the whole of his being at the glass, trying to get to the slender bald woman just beyond. She could barely breathe around the fear, the fear that Alex would be too late, that he wouldn’t be enough, that this would be how it ends. That he’d finally die by fire. That he’d die with _him_. Michael wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t leave her, so Alex would just tuck behind him, against his back and against his grief and follow him into the dark. The sirens weren’t nearly as loud as Alex’s need. They weren’t as loud as how much he needed to scream and convince Michael to stop- please just stop, to stay. _Please just stay with me_.

Isobel startled, the world slapping shut again, quiet as she stared at him wide eyed. 

“Don’t break the glass. He needs you.” Alex Manes stared at her from where he was sitting on the floor of the hallway just outside her cell. The mindscape shifting the world to pastels and inky black, gray gone pink and white light from above tinted lavender. The door behind him shaking in indigo and his hair blurring black. The smooth edges slipped back around him, the mirrored doors empty, silent and reflecting nothing but the long and endless hallway. He wet his lips, flicking his eyebrows up at her. “Please.”

She startled back, stumbling out of the mindscape and swallowing around the way her stomach rolled. She reached, grabbing Maria’s wrist and took a long slow breath, feeling the way she settled back into her body.

“Alex is out there,” she said, voice hushed like she still wasn’t entirely sure of what she’d just seen.

“Is he okay?” Maria asked, moving slightly to push a hand against the mirrored glass, eyes searching before meeting Isobel’s in reflection. They were still clutching each other’s fingers, a strange soft comfort among the steel and cement. She kept one hand on the glass turning to watch Isobel stare at a point just beyond. “Iz! Is he _okay_?”

Isobel shook her head, breaking the gaze and looked at Maria. The other girl still had mascara flaked on her cheeks, the smear of her makeup forgotten. She was wearing a purple bra under the rose colored tank top, her soft long sleeved shirt tucked at the top of the metal pallet, a pillow for her head. She’d left the damp blood stained sleeve flopped over the side, careful and considering even when caught in a tiny cage. Her skin was prickled with goosebumps, cold and shivering slightly, but ignoring it even as she frowned at Isobel. “I think?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s not an exact science okay?” Isobel pursed her lips, twisting to put her feet down and wobble to stand. She towered over Maria for a moment before grabbing at her shoulder for balance and turning to the mirrored door again. She could feel how soft her skin was: warm and comfortable under her palm. They were reflected like that for a moment. She was tall and slender, blond hair matted a little at her temple with blood and bruise vivid against her pale skin. Maria was shorter, curvy and tucked against her side. She seemed to fit there, hair tickling against her shoulder, eyes wide and determined. Isobel leaned harder, leaned into the comfort of it before reaching and dragging Maria with her. It was so easy with the other woman, tugging her into the mindscape like stepping over a threshold together. They stood in the hallway hand in hand, Alex blinking at them from where he’d been wiping at his eyes.

“I didn’t invite you,” he said, bitter around the way his mouth had been twisted with tears.

“You don’t have to,” Isobel told him, wetting her lips and hunkering down. Maria was still looking around the hallway before she sank into a crouch. “This is my place. It always has been.”

Alex Manes frowned at her, the doors in the hallway rattling for a moment like they were holding back demons, the feel haunted and terrifying for a breath, the short cut off scream that escaped echoing down the cement and Maria’s eyes went wide. “This is you.”

“Yeah.” He kept his words clipped, fingers balled into fists and jaw tight as he fought them, fought her. Isobel narrowed her eyes, leaning forward to place a palm on the ground just beside his thigh. 

“What are you hiding?”

“Stop it.” He glared at her, eyes black and flashing in the strange coloring.

“What are you hid-” she reached, grabbing what had felt like a smooth mirrored edge of his thoughts and pulled, yanking and peeling the facade off of him. He glared at her from under black eyeliner, hair gone spikey and messy like he’d worn it in high school. She saw the way his jaw went stubborn, working as he pushed to his feet- whole and young for a moment. She watched the way he held his hands out just a little from his side, hiding something behind the wall of himself- keeping it secret. Maria peered over her shoulder and he growled, low and defensive. Isobel laughed and shoved her fingers into him, pushing through the black t-shirt and watching the green visor of the ufo emporium fall from his fingers.

She reached and instead of pulling him out, she stepped inside, inside the wood walls of a toolshed. Inside the warm feel of lips on hers that she startled backwards, stumbling over where Maria was watching with wide eyes. Michael had both hands around Alex’s neck, thumbs sliding against his jaw as they touched, pressing together in the soft sigh of lips against lips. It was warm, enveloping like a soft tide, like sinking under and it welled up- this feeling that Alex kept tucked so close to his heart. It was his moment, well worn and dog eared at the edges with use. He could hear the soft noise of tongue against lips, the touch of teeth and the drag of it. He could hear the noises Michael made, the ones that started low in his chest to break in his throat. He could taste them, feel the way his hair went warm and perfect near his scalp, the way his breath hitched when Alex tucked his fingers into those curls and tugged. 

This was his favorite moment.

The feel of Michael’s knuckles pushing against his stomach, the quick needy hands pulling at the button of his jeans. They way they laughed, huffing it around the startling feel of Michael’s fingers pushing into his pants, slipping under his boxers to wrap around him. He startled, shaking with fingers that couldn’t figure out where to go. This was so much. This was so so much. The delicious and inescapable feel of being wanted, of being needed, of being kissed and loved and touched. The stroke of curious fingers against him, the way there had been a shared startled look before they’d crashed back together, kicking out of shoes and hooking out of socks without breaking the kiss. The way they’d stumbled to the side, hitching up onto the pallet with Michael settling determined on his back, the way his golden eyes had gone hooded- pupils blown as he stroked himself. Michael wetting his lips, mouth hanging open like his tongue was watering- wet with want and Alex could only press down, press _against_ and rub. They’d grabbed and gripped, rutting and rocking against each other, furious with a heat and a need that was so far beyond anything he’d ever thought of. This was something so much more. This was Michael, open and desperate with his name in his mouth and his tongue searching, reaching and biting at his lips. Michael pleading with little needy moans. Michael. Michael. _Michael_.

Love meant falling and Alex had leapt.

Maria gasped behind them, flushing hot and aware. Isobel could feel the way it was infectious, this want. She could feel the way it made her want to turn, to catch the closest mouth and hope, hope that it would be something similar, something that felt like the air she was breathing- necessary and automatic. She wanted to feel it, feel it in her veins. Maria yelled her name and yanked, yanking her back through Alex and into the hallway where she stood panting, body alight with a want that felt like an echo.

“Stop it,” Maria hissed, staring at her angrily.

“Oh spare me,” Isobel growled, tearing a bit from Maria and throwing it onto the floor. It splashed up, staining at all three of them as the world went dark, the wind biting cold and wild around the way she was tearing out of her own clothes, Michael’s hands fumbling at her shirt. He was in the way, but he wanted her. He was chasing her mouth with his, eyes closed and she knew in that moment he was thinking about something else. They all knew the same way Maria had known. The moonlight making Michael silver, beautiful in edges that seemed sharp under the curls. She’d known like Maria had known even when she felt the way Michael’s hands curled at her hips. She tore herself out of it but could only stumble back far enough that Alex was just standing between her and Maria’s memory in the dirt. He watched, eyes gone sad and inevitable. He coughed a rough noise and suddenly the image was overlaid, golden and dusty warm, smelling like skin and sweat, the sharp spice of Michael’s cologne. Maria was shifting into Alex. Michael on his back either way. Michael on his back with eyes closed as Maria moved on him. Michael on his back with his knees hitched around Alex’s ribs, hands in his hair, on the back of his neck, pulling at him, aching and arching into the roll of Alex’s hips. The sound of his name, just a breath, a prayer, a benediction. 

Alex tasted like forever in Michael’s mouth even as he breathed Maria’s name.

“You’re an idiot,” Isobel snarled, reaching to drag Maria out of the dirt, pulling her to stand and shifting between her and the way the moment in the moonlight disappeared like shadows in the noon day sun. She watched the pale of it retreat against the soft sticky morning of a kiss to thumbprints. She watched Alex shake, reliving it. She watched the way his eyes welled, heart breaking even as it healed. He wanted to stay here. He wanted to _stay_.

“You’re cruel,” Maria whispered, turning to push her face against Isobel’s shoulder. She was hiding. She was hiding and Isobel could only cup the back of her hair and let her for a moment. “You’ve always been so cruel.”

Isobel shook her head a little. “The truth is just the truth. We are what makes it seem cruel.”

They were back in the hallway and Alex was panting, chest heaving like he’d run a marathon and eyes flashing under the spark of anger. “That wasn’t yours.”

“Be mad at me later,” Isobel told them both, nose wrinkling as she looked around, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. “You’re both idiots.”

Someone was pounding a nail behind a door to her right. The sound loud, heavy handed and even. She felt herself pulled to it- pulled to the way the crash seemed to crack loud. The doors started rattling again. 

“Stop it, Isobel.” Alex was holding himself up with a hand against the wall. He was missing parts of himself again. He’d left them behind, shapes of himself flash burned in the mirrors now. There was a scream, familiar and choking that she found, hiding behind the door three down on the right. She stared. It was the same toolshed from before- wood warm and easy with morning light. She watched the way Alex had woken up, the feel of Michael’s mouth dropping sleep warm kisses to his collarbone, the tickle of his hair. It seemed so sweet, so pathetically teen romance. She narrowed her eyes, tilting to watch the edge of the door rattle, little screams shaking out, escaping through the spaces there. She pushed, pressing both hands and behind her she heard Alex’s soft, “No.”

The hammer fell four times. Four times she watched it bounce off her brother’s bone, off the wood beneath. She saw the strength it took to shatter a boy, to shatter something that had never seemed fragile. She saw the rage it took to break a boy in love. She felt the heat of blood as it hit her face, the way she couldn’t even flinch from it, caught between the way she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t save him. She saw the moment Michael simply passed out, went limp from the pain of it all and hit the floorboards like a bag of wet cement. She saw the mangled mess of his fingers, the music torn from them. It was beyond fear now. She was sure she was going to die. There were bits of bone and skin that clung to the hammer. She saw the moment Jesse Manes turned, eyes dead as he simply dropped the hammer and grabbed Alex by the hair, pulling him bodily from the moment of love and light, dragging him bodily into a nightmare.

Maria was behind her. Maria was covering her mouth, but couldn’t cover her eyes. They stared at the moment in slow motion even as Alex limped to stand next to them. He ducked his head for a moment before lifting it to stare at the sight. He stared at it the way some stared into the fire, like he could find the secrets of himself in the heat of it, in the scorching terror of it. “He broke my collarbone and two ribs that night.” He shrugged. “I thought he was going to kill him. I thought for sure he was going to kill him.” He exhaled, voice gone flat and toneless with trauma. “My Dad is a monster.”

The moment shifted, flipping through moments of endless rage layered on top of each other, spelling out a single truth: Alex Manes was a child of violence and pain. The fist that struck them was every time he’d ever been hit, just one over the other over the other, so many times it blurred like stop motion into a fluid punch to the kidney. The fall was in so many different places, the beach, the woods, the backyard, the kitchen, the living room, the deck, the toolshed, each one just the same angle, the same view of trying to curl up and curl small. Each time the stuttering moments caught the feel of a boot to the stomach. It caught the pain of being so small and so sure he’d done something to deserve this: that he’d done something to disappoint his father.

Alex just watched it all, watched it happen and didn’t react beyond the same blank face she’d found on him when she’d arrived. It was a mask. Maria swallowed and there was another moment that he turned them toward. 

Michael was smiling at him, hopeful eyes and hand a mess of shiny pink scar tissue as he leaned a shoulder against the motel room door. Alex couldn’t stay, not long, not this time but they crashed together and parted and Michael was wearing the suit, the suit he’d worn to her wedding. He was panting, hands grabbing for Alex where he was shucking out of his shirt in a different hotel room. Another and it was Michael’s fingers on his face, tracing the curve of his brow, wondering in the dark and Alex couldn’t stay. He couldn’t stay any longer. 

He had to leave before his father found out. He had to win his war.

Maria reached out, pausing the moment and turned it, turned it to the side she had like flipping a floor length mirror. Michael was wearing the same shirt, the same dirty jeans but his hair was wild as he stumbled along the wall to the bathroom at the Pony. He was barely coherent, barely able to make words. He’d drunk himself into a stupor, shaking at the end of the hall before the door to the back alley. He’d hidden there in the dark and she’d let him. It was better when he cried in the dark than when-

The scene shifted and Michael was hollering an insult across the pool table, eyes wild in the suit he’d worn to Isobel’s wedding. He was smiling through bloody teeth, shaking off the hands that were trying to hold him back as he screamed a little and took the next punch on purpose, he’d slapped to the side and laughed a broken rowdy sound. Again, this time in loose jeans and a white t-shirt, again in a black shirt this time, again, the cut eyebrow, the busted lip, the bloody smiles and battered knuckles, the broken pool cues and beer bottles. The fights layering faster and closer until they’d just stopped. They’d just stopped and Maria had known, she had to have known from the way he went soft edged and sober the moment Alex had shown up in her bar again. He’d broken a table the night the news of Alex’s injury hit the local news, two chairs, and at least fifteen glasses. 

She’d called the cops- called Max. She’d mopped his blood off the floor, again.

Alex turned and looked at Maria. He was angry, angry that he’d been waiting for so long and she’d just taken it at the last second. He was angry that she’d offered Michael a simple comfort he never could. He was brimming and boiling with a black rage that he could never offer normal. He was angry and all she could do was close her eyes. Because she’d known. Here they couldn’t hide and Isobel wanted to put herself between Maria and that cold devastating rage that Alex kept hidden behind tight smiles and an echoing, “Okay.”

“I knew.” Maria just stood straighter and looked at him.

“I know.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“I wouldn’t be either.” Alex wet his lips and stared hard at the floor. “I’m not ready to forgive you.”

“I never stood a chance,” Maria told him, wetting her lips. “I was just really good at lying to myself.”

Alex huffed a laugh, closing his eyes and taking a long slow breath. The whole hallway seemed to go quiet as he exhaled, the screams and the far off sound of explosions going muffled. The hallway going dark and quiet again. The three of them stood there and Isobel shook her head. 

“All this for him, huh?” She couldn’t help the way the air seemed to go dark, go a little bitter with the way her words twisted up and spit out of her. 

“Everything,” Alex breathed. “ _Everything._ ”

Maria ducked her head and looked at Isobel and for a moment she was distant, far away and closed off. Isobel nodded a few times. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” 

She raised her hands, grabbing the edges of this shared moment and pulled, tearing it down around them with a rumble and came out of it, gasping into her body back in the cell. She stared at Maria in the mirror, the other woman still looking down, head hanging as she held herself up with a palm to the glass. She couldn’t see Alex on the other side anymore, just the two of them in the bright white light. 

“Right.” Isobel turned away, tucking her heels up onto the pallet and faced the other side of the small cell. It was the closest they could come to privacy.

**  
They’d broken out the paper plates about the same time Levi had fired up the grill. Kyle was sipping a beer, hand still prickling cold from the ice water as Rosa stood at his shoulder sipping her can of Coke. Each house had contributed something, one group of kids bringing a package of hot dogs, another a loaf of plain white bread in lieu of hot dog buns. There was a potato salad that still had the orange bogo sticker on the lid. Another group had a bag of premixed salad fixings with a store brand italian dressing. Another brought the packs of coke and Arizona had set out the cooler full of beer, refilling it from a small black fridge that was inside the Econoline.

Kyle had his phone out, sending another text to Alex, the stack of blue messages starting to become worrisome. He sent another, adding the simple emergency tag of 911.

[sms] 911. 9-1-1 nine one one. Seriously, answer me this is big  
[sms] dude, starting to be not chill about you not replying  
[sms] hmu the moment you’re out of the bunker  
[sms]if i don’t hear back from you in the next hour i’m sending backup to drag you out and make you eat  
[sms]don’t make me get the cowboy

“Chips!” A yell came from uphill, the group had crowded into the shaded space under the pavilion in the center of the small community, the stone ringed fire pit crackling with a lively fire.”Chips! Chips! Chips!” The grill was one of the cheap red ones bought from Wal-Mart during the summer sales. Kyle managed to look up as the long limbed black boy from earlier started moving too fast, bags of chips gripped in tight fists. It seemed like slow motion, the way his legs went stiff kneed, arms starting to windmill in a vain attempt to slow his momentum down, the way his face went laughing to surprised and circled around into a sudden contortion of panic as he tripped. There were a few startled breaths, one whoop of delight, and someone else yelling a belated “Slow down!”

The boys skidded face first down the hill, back half lifted for a dizzying half second before crashing down and rolling to a stop. Kyle was up and moving before he’d even realised, Levi hot on his heels with the small blonde girl and the older woman with dark hair and freckles close behind. Kyle put on a quick burst of speed, legs pumping as he slid to a stop next to the kid, eyes starting at his head, his face and cataloguing quick down his neck, shoulders, one arm then the other, through his midsection and down both legs. He’d bloodied his nose, groaning on his back with a few fingers twisted at horrible angles, the chip bags quivering in the stiff breeze that pushed along the road and across the soft meadow.

“Davi? Right?” Kyle held both hands up, making sure the boy was looking at them before nodding a few times. “Sorry, there’s a lot of you and I’m shit with names.”

“You are a doctor?” The boy managed, voice low and hissed through teeth. He was taking long slow breaths and cradling his broken fingers to his chest as the others arrived, panting and worried behind where Kyle was sitting. “You are to be good at people?”

“You’d think, right?” He moued his mouth, shaking his head and reached to take the boy’s hand, checking with quick touches. “I’m getting better though. I was a real dick for most of my life. It’s kind of embarrassing to think about it.”

“He was,” Rosa agreed from behind the growing crowd.

“Thanks.” He wet his lips and looked over at the dark haired woman who was moving to kneel at the boys other side. “She’s right though. Real cliche. But,” he nodded at the hand held gently in his palm, mouthing broken as the little blond pushed through the crowd and plopped herself at Davi’s head, worried eyes dark in her pale face. “You’d be surprised how much better I’m getting with all this practice.”

Davi held the little blonde’s gaze, the time between words stretching and Kyle knew they were talking, the otherness crashing in again with a startling weight. The woman across from him smiled softly, taking the boy’s hand from him carefully. She cupped both hands around the boy’s twisted fingers, skin starting to glow as she closed her eyes. The air felt electric, the faint ozone scent kicking up from between them. Kyle’s eyes went wide, watching as the whole area seemed to dim, a mild brown out like the power was being pulled elsewhere, a bug zapper crackling loudly on the back porch somewhere to their left. The woman- Abelah- smiled at him before the line between her brows creased heavy, her hands alight and there was a discharge, a quick crackle that seemed to break with the suddenness of a rubber band. She sagged slightly, dropping the boy’s hand. His fingers long and straight, skin smooth.

“Well, I feel super useless now.” Kyle watched as Levi moved, helping Abelah to her feet and holding her against his side. 

“She’ll be down for a day or two from that,” Arizona said. As Davi smiled sweetly up at the girl who was frowning angrily down at him. Kyle pushed to his feet, looking at her and then over to where Levi was walking Abelah to the nearest chair. “It takes a lot out of them, but they do what’s necessary.”

“Don’t they have nail polish remover?” Kyle asked, confused as he glanced around. “That helps.”

“Nail polish remover? What?” Arizona made a face and turned to give Davi and the girl- “Cerin? Do you have any nail polish remover?” Cerin, right.

“Yes, it is inside of the blue house,” the girl said, barely looking up from where Davi was managing to blush and wipe at his bloody nose with a coy look.

Arizona took a sip of her beer and waited, finally shaking her head and coughing to break the silent and extended conversation the two teens were having in the soft eyed looks. “Can you get it, please?”

The girl didn’t look away from Davi, making a bossy face down at him before closing her eyes and holding her hand out from her side. A breath, a long tense implication of pressure settling on Kyle’s skin before it popped and the bottle of pale pink nail polish remover sat in her fingers, half empty and top notched with different colors of nail polish. She flipped it to hold by the cap, pointing the wide base at them. “Here.”

“Thank you.”

“Did she just?”

“Fucking useful at cards,” Arizona confided, wetting her lips and taking the bottle for him. “What’s this for? Do we just?”

“I dunno, the people I know drink it and it helps.”

“I am...”

“Mildly disgusted, yeah, I get it.” He smiled, taking off the ball cap and scratching at where his hair was pressed flat against his scalp now and looked over at her. She was watching him with narrowed eyes, frowning for a moment before shaking her head.

“You’re stupidly handsome, just so you know.”

“O-kay?” Kyle tugged the hat back onto his head, smile going crooked even as the heat crawled up his neck and bloomed over his chest. He was suddenly wildly aware of how close they were as they walked, her hair tickling over his forearm in the breeze. 

“I have to say that or I’d get too caught up in not saying it. You know?” She smiled, glancing over at him. “That whole, don’t say the thing you’re thinking about until it becomes the only thing you’re thinking about and making it eight billion times more likely that you’re going to blurt it out at an inappropriate time and embarrass your-”

“Yeah,” he cut in, heartbeat speeding up for a second and flooding him with a heat he had to face to the ground. He pushed his hands into his jacket pockets, the fabric pulling tight over his shoulders as he smiled at his boots. “You had me hike here so I’d have to wear hiking clothes, didn’t you?”

“It’s a kink.” She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear and bumped him with her shoulder. The smile going little and shared like a secret.

“Anything else I should know about?” He touched his tongue to his molar, eyes slanting sideways to where she was slugging a sip from her longneck. 

“Not just yet, Doctor.” She paused. “Got a girlfriend?”

“No.” He swallowed, mouth watering for a breath as he swallowed. “Got some big boyfriend I should be sc-”

“Nope.”

They paused just outside the light of the fire ring and she looked up at him, teeth light on her bottom lip and he couldn’t breathe for a second. It was a solid thing that sat on his chest, this sudden realization of want. That if he wanted to, they could crash together, that she would open her mouth and he could taste at the heat and wet of her. He swallowed and the seconds seemed to tick into minutes, pulled long as she started to lean, caught in the same heat that was pulling him to her. 

“Kyle!” 

He startled back, head whipping around to where Rosa was waving at him, shooting her interruption a look that was wide eyed and annoyed. “What?” He hollered back, ticking his head slightly to where Arizona was standing, silently hoping that she would take the hint. 

“They have a soda for you?” She smiled, wide and bright, lobbing it to him with a quick underhand toss.

The can slapped against his palm when he caught it on reflex: Dr Dazzle. He glared at her across the campfire and she lifted smug eyebrows at him, all fake innocence and smiles.

“I’ll just get this to Abbi,” Arizona said around a quick cough, nodding a few times and taking a half step back and away from him. He opened his mouth, struggling for an argument before sighing heavily and tapping his thumb against the crack top on the can and watching her head across the pavilion to where the other woman looked pale.

He pointed sharply around the can at Rosa. She just laughed, clapping her hands and tilting her head back. For a minute, everything felt almost normal. He pulled out his phone.

[sms]Fine. I’m calling in the cavalry.  
[sms]don’t say i didn’t warn you

**

Alex managed to pry the face off the palm panel just outside the door to his cell. It had been painstaking work, cutting through the exterior casing without damaging the internal circuitry and wiring. It was a mess of tiny sauterings, the class 2 transformer and solinoid pushed to have secondary and tertiary kill switch protocols. The main board was slim and delicate, barely longer than his palm. The work was delicate, terrifying, and slow. He’d counted fourteen thermal contacts and at least five HRM sensors with anti-contact nodes.

“Fuck you, Flint,” he muttered, closing his eyes at the sight. It was a careful tangling, the systems set to activate from several different angles. He stared at the wires, the veritable rainbow neatly spaced to keep the power limited sets safe from the delimited actuary. “Paranoid, much?”

His lower back ached, weight canted carefully so he could keep a hip and shoulder against the wall, balancing on one leg with the panel in his palm. He’d used the crutch to get to standing, stretching slowly the way his PT had taught him, making sure he didn’t cramp up or over stress the left side of his body compensating for the right. He was studying the wiring, tracing the patterns in the circuitry to touch back into the wall. He didn’t want to have to chip at the cement to get into the wiring that fed into the cell, but it seemed like he’d have to find the null grounding wires to cross patch and bypass the mainline. He was half convinced that if he could simply hopscotch the power line, the doors would autorelease, resetting the coding and leaving it waiting for the initial command prompt that the installation would have created. 

“Too easy.” He closed his eyes, wishing he could move his weight onto his right, an idle thought that he shoved away as he counted the wires again. There were four more than necessary, the internal battery acting as a safety precaution and not an actual power source. He blinked. “No way.” He glanced back the way they’d come to the heavy blast doors and then down at the hacked open keypad. There was a matching handprint scanner at the inside lock and he frowned before grabbing the crutch and heading to the main door. “Did you leave a...” 

The hallway was still silent, just the subtle scuff of the rubber pad at the base of his crutch and the counterpoint of his bare heel. He’d changed into the non descript gray sweatpants and t-shirt that had been left on the pallet for him, glad to be out of the nearly two day old clothes he’d been in. He’d knotted the right leg just under his residual limb and tugged at the tight neckline before getting started on the project of escape. Hunter had said fourteen hours. He had fourteen hours to get them out, but it felt like he’d need more than that. 

Alex had to be better.

He was contemplating the palm scanner at the blast door and sitting at the chipped edge formica table that sat in his childhood kitchen between one breath and the next. The air was silvery, pale and watery light picking out the pale blue flecks in the composite countertop to his right and the lines on the gingham blue checked dish towels. The disassembled m-16A2 gas powered rifle was set carefully on the towel over the table, a smaller glock 9mm to the right. He was sitting back straight in the vinyl cushioned chairs, both hands on the table as he started cataloguing the weapon parts out of habit. He was paused in the meticulous and constant precision of weapon’s care and practice, hands small as he stared across the space where Flint was paused. His brother had a black eye, hair sheared short around his ears and the back of his head. He had both hands flat on the table top, the timer between them as they waited. Alex remembered the tense feeling, the way the winner would be able to preen through the simple two word congratulations while the loser was given a visible lesson in why they had to do better.

He remembered the way anxiety would curl in his stomach, pushing his heartbeat rabbit fast and hands shaking. He remembers the way Flint would always slow down just enough to make the race seem fair. He remembers the apology he’d get in a quick flung look before the slide cover plate snapped into fit and the sound of the magazine insert slapped home. He’d set it down, muttering a quick, “Complete.” And then blow out a breath as Alex set his down a few seconds later. 

Alex never wanted his apologies. He wanted to win for once.

“This is cozy,” Isobel Evans’ voice echoed behind him, wandering through the paused scene, nose wrinkling as she touched the edge of the dish towel and then looked back at where Alex was no longer the scared boy, but present in his body in this memory. He sighed.

“Not the best time,” he muttered, wondering if he was paused in the hallway with the ticking time bomb of the open face plate in his palms.

“I was bored,” Isobel replied, waving an imperious hand as she turned to set a hip against the counter and look at the table. The clock started and he moved out of a pavlovian response, grabbing the pieces and fitting them together. Flint stayed paused. 

“You weren’t bored,” Alex sighed, hands moving by rote, the sound almost comforting. The spring and buffer sliding silently home, fingers deft as he placed the extractor and spring, the bolt slotting into the cam bolt pinhole. “You were scared.”

“I’m always scared,” Isobel said, mouth twisting as she rolled her eyes. She pushed at where Flint was paused, dissolving him as she sat in the opposite chair. “That’s not some deep Jedi shit.” She reached to touch something on the table and he slapped her fingers away without pause. She pouted, pulling back and watching the way all the doorways were dark and inky in this place. The hallways a threat. 

“It takes one to know one.” 

She smiled sweetly at him as he arched a brow at her. “Control freak.”

He huffed a small smile, he couldn’t help it as he flashed her an amused look. The rifle was assembling by rote, the timer ticking loud. He sped up: firing pin, half turn to seat, the charging handle, the pivot pins, each part blurring together to create violence. The rifle snapped together with a quick kick of wrist and he checked the slide chamber, the sound a soft metal on metal grind. He set it aside, keeping his shoulders still as his neck tensed, not enough, not fast enough, not good enough. 

Alex was forgetting something. He was leaving something unfinished. The ticking got louder. It never sped up, just intensified. He was sweating, a cold prickle of it along his hairline. There were no pictures on the fridge behind her. There weren’t report cards with glowing recommendations or points of pride. There was a plain white front, meticulously clean. The countertops had the same severe minimalism, the dish towels folded precisely and kept in tick tock order. There were plain glasses in the cabinet above the sink, the plates to the right, and silverware in the drawer. There was no junk drawer. The floor was clean, spotless along the floorboards, the terrazzo polished. 

“Hey.” It started like this. Alex froze, that simple syllable barked across a lawn, across the room, across the table was like a slap. “This is not a drill. This is your life on the line. You aren’t fast enough and your fellow airmen die. Your brothers die.”

To get blood out of the grout he’d start with a towel dipped in water, scuffing at it to loosen. He’d make a paste of baking powder next, scrubbing with a quick stroke, toothbrush bristles bending with the pressure. 

“Use this time to properly educate yourself on how to represent your country.” He was always being educated with broken bones and butterfly bandages. He’d clean up his mess on hands and knees. He shouldn’t have made it in the first place. Somewhere in the hallway his father was moving, the sound of his footsteps a backbeat to the timer. He moved faster. 

Isobel looked behind her, the mindscape gone taut and the doors darkening. “What the fuck, Alex?”

Alex didn’t look up. He didn’t look at the door. He didn’t look at Isobel. He had to finish, the ticking was so loud now. The time running out. He could feel the way his entire body flooded with adrenaline, the fight or flight kicking in to speed up his assembly. The glock slide shaking a little as he replaced the firing pin safety spring. He just had to get the catch to line up. He just had to be faster. Had to be better. Smarter. He had to. He had-

“Fuck this.” Isobel reached across the table and grabbed him by the shirt front, ignoring the startled strangled yelp of fear and pitched them to the side, entire scene rolling as they went upside down and settled into a booth at the Crashdown, blue neon lighting him from above as she nodded once and pulled the shake to her. There was a plate of steaming fries, oil glistening hot and perfect. He grabbed the back of the booth, looking behind him- eyes tracking the door, the window, the exit, the bathroom, behind the counter and into the kitchen before his knuckles relaxed and he pushed his back to the brick. 

“No wonder he likes you,” he muttered.

“He has to. He’s my brother.” She shrugged, rolling her head on her neck and stretched her legs to plop her heels on the opposite bench, crossing daintily at the ankle. “We need to get out of here.”

“I’m working on it.”

“I didn’t say _you_ need to get us out of here.” She snagged a fry, pointing at him with it before popping it in her mouth. “I said _we_. I’m kind of a superhero now. I don’t know if you’d heard.” She dropped her chin onto her fist and batted her eyelashes at him around a sweet smile.

“This isn’t a joke, Isobel.” Alex glowered at her, brows drawing together and mouth a flat line. “If we make a single mistake, the whole place goes up. Michael-”

“Oh, so he’s _Michael_ now.” She watched him, eyes narrowing. “Cute.”

 

Alex slanted her a darker glare, sighing before wetting his lips and tapping the table top. He got up, walking across the space to pluck a grease pencil from the place they were stored behind the counter to mark the wrappers of to-go burgers. He slid back into the booth, sketching quickly. There was a central chamber with five doors, one that led to a short hallway with three x’s. I the main chamber he sketched the table, the server rack, the far door, the space where the computer array lived and where the other doors led to a different part of the complex. “We’re here.”

She nodded, pointing to the other doors. “This is a bedroom- couple of bunk beds and a shower like at the gym. Over behind this is a bunch of like... air conditioning units and fuse control boxes? I don’t know, it’s just a lot of machinery. This door I couldn’t get a read on.” She pointed at the one beside the monitor array where his father and brother’s had entered and exited the most from. 

“That’s got to be the main entrance or the office.”

“Whatever,” she pushed the plate of fries over to him. “Hang on, she’s waking up.” Isobel froze, mouth half open and the whole space went dark, half lit and folding in on itself like the power had been cut. She came back to life just as suddenly, pointing to where Maria had appeared behind them, looking at the jukebox in the front waiting area. The moment she arrived the lights kicked back to full, going two degrees brighter, the slanting pastels nearly iridescent. 

Maria swallowed, wetting her lips. She was wearing an older outfit here and it took Alex a second to realize he was in jeans, a burgundy t-shirt, and a comfortable snap front plaid. He wondered if his hair was styled too. Maria was in jeans, the white tank layered under a sweater that was mostly just an impression of knitting, the loops large like yarn fishnet and hanging off her shoulders. Her hair was slightly longer, curling down her back like it had in high school, caught back with her favorite headband. She was wearing red lipstick and the jangling necklaces that matched her bangled bracelets. Isobel was stunning in a simple wrap dress with blue flowers and a caramel colored leather jacket, hair unbound and pale gold in the shimmering light. 

“Put on some planning music.” Isobel paused. “Nothing from the 90’s, dear God.”

Maria glared at her, cocking her chin and purposefully pushing a set of numbers and sashaying around the jukebox as the simple melody started to play. Hall and Oates _Rich Girl_ started to play. “How’s this?”

“Oh my god! You’re hilarious!” Isobel rolled her eyes, pointing at Alex. “Did you know she’s this funny?” She snapped and the music changed. _Bad Blood_ by Taylor Swift started playing and Isobel smiled sweetly as Maria shook her head, walking to slide into the booth with her. Alex had made space for her out of habit, but noted that she didn’t hesitate, simply pushed Isobel over and joined her. The moment their shoulders touched the schematic seemed to get stronger, the lines going more specific. 

“Of course you like Taylor Swift,” Maria muttered.

“You’re lying if you say you don’t.” 

Alex leaned back, both brows going up as he sighed. “Can we maybe focus on the whole escape and not die in the process thing?” He cocked his chin and held up his fingers to illustrate the schematic in front of them.

“I can multitask.” Isobel’s hair slipped over her shoulder, brushing against the back of Maria’s wrist. Alex noted the way Maria touched the ends lightly with her other hand before tucking it back over Isobel’s shoulder. He tapped his fingers in time with a beat that seemed to filter quietly through the air from somewhere.

“Do you need a hair tie?” Maria asked.

“No, I’m good.”

“I’m working on getting the door open,” Alex interjected, blinking a little at the quiet intimacy that was growing between the girls.

“Can I just break it with my brain?”

“No.” There was a moment where the windows lit up with fire, startling and bright, the memory of Caulfield sitting just past the blinds. He could almost feel the concussive blast, the heat of it, the way Michael’s face had just gone still. Alex curled his hands into fists, willing the ghost of Michael Guerin away and didn’t look at where both Isobel and Maria were staring at him. “The last time we broke a door the entire place blew in under ten minutes. There were at least thirty survivors of the ‘47 crash being held there. They all died.”

Isobel frowned for a moment before the scene shifted, blurring from the booth to a long table in the center of Caulfield prison. The high windows pushing yellow light into the cavernous open space. The cells were almost empty, darkened as they stood in the center. “Here?”

Alex stared at her, startled. “Yes. How did you-?”

Isobel walked to the door Michael had broken, staring at the empty cell, hand reaching to touch light fingers to the glass. She glanced over her shoulder to where Maria was standing with her arms crossed defensively over her stomach. Alex watched them hold the gaze. 

“Okay, now I’m lost.”

Maria took a half step forward, head ducked. “My mom isn’t sick.” She wet her lips and looked up at Isobel, face soft. “She had someone scramble her memories. She was protecting something. Some kids.”

“Us,” Isobel said after a long moment and it sounded like an apology. “I think she was protecting the three of us.”

Alex frowned, looking around the prison, the table in the center neat with notebooks, carefully annotated experiments. There was something missing. He could hear a ticking to his right. He turned, looking for the source. The ticking was quiet, like a watch left out in a silent room. Alex could hear it, the quick tempo of time running out.

“Do you hear that?” Maria turned her head, looking around the prison. Isobel narrowed her eyes, head cocked listening as she took a half step toward him. She huffed a breath, the prison melting away to a simple blank space, the floor flooded with light as the dark stretched endlessly around them, small pinpricks of light like distant stars floating and swirling around them. She took another step towards Alex; he backed up in response. The dark wobbled, moving with them as she sped up, clicking across the space in the brown boots, skirt of her dress swishing around her calves. She was terrifying in that breath, intent and nearly glowing. She seemed to swell brighter at the edges, coiled and glowing before she struck, in motion before he could react. 

Alex was moving in half time, the ticking nearly deafening as she pushed her hands into his chest, pushed into the walls he’d been so careful with, so diligent in building. She pushed past them with a snarl. Maria was moving in slow motion beside her, hands reacting to defend him.

They were both too slow. They were only human after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz hooked her foot against the railing at the top of the metal rung ladder, braced herself, and heaved. The seal on the bunker airlock resisted, stolid and portly before muttering a soft hiss and flipping up and out. The air that rushed in was cold, bracing and sweet. She always paused here for a moment: eyes closed as she inhaled, lungs full before reaching to grab the outside lip and haul herself out of the manhole cover.
> 
> “Thanks for the help, asshole,” Liz yelled down, panting where she was sprawled across the ground before flipping to face the sky, hands loose on her stomach.
> 
> “You’re welcome!” Michael’s reply was cheery and she huffed an aggrieved noise in his general direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hover for translation

Liz hooked her foot against the railing at the top of the metal rung ladder, braced herself, and heaved. The seal on the bunker airlock resisted, stolid and portly before muttering a soft hiss and flipping up and out. The air that rushed in was cold, bracing and sweet. She always paused here for a moment: eyes closed as she inhaled, lungs full before reaching to grab the outside lip and haul herself out of the manhole cover.

“Thanks for the help, asshole,” Liz yelled down, panting where she was sprawled across the ground before flipping to face the sky, hands loose on her stomach.

“You’re welcome!” Michael’s reply was cheery and she huffed an aggrieved noise in his general direction.

“Max,” she said to the air. “Your brother is a dick.” She nodded a few times, mouth puckering as she let her feet dangle. “Just. Could you maybe do something about that?” She opened her eyes, the sky fading to night, the pale blue of New Mexico winter picking up the deep clear indigo and wild violets and pinks near the horizon. She could almost reach out and touch Sirius where it sat in the southern sky. It was a clear night, no scraps of clouds, just an endless darkness spreading from one distant horizon to the other. 

The stars just watched, impassive and brightening in the night sky. Liz Ortecho was in love, but she had so much work to do. She touched light fingers to the space just under her collarbone, pressing a little and willing Max to be there. The night sky didn’t care that she was alone. She wanted to hear his voice, she wanted to close her eyes and hear the way he said her name.

“Liz.” It was breathless. Every time, every time he said her name it was like she’d knocked the wind out of him just by existing.

“I’m closer today than I have been, Max.” She wet her lips and pulled her heels out of the manhole, setting the soles of her feet in the dirt. “We’re close. You just hang on, okay? You were so patient. I know you can do this. It’s important. You stay put.” She pressed a little against the fading handprint, the edges already going dark like frost peeling back from the heat. “Please? I need you to do this for me. Okay?”

He didn’t answer. Her skin prickled at the crawl of silence, the soft clatter of metal on metal and the creak of the sides of the automotive bay as the wind blew. It traveled far, skidding and racing across the open desert plains, pushing and driving faster. It broke around the chain link fence and pooled in the open yard before skimming over her and off into the distance. She closed her eyes at the slight hint of grit and the tickle of her long hair, blinking a few times at the threat of tears. She smiled a little, watching the stars glow brighter, light years of travel breaking in the atmosphere, filtering down and across whole galaxies to do one thing in this moment: sparkle for her.

“For me,” she reminded him around a long shuddering breath. The stars kept watch and for that one moment she knew how small she was, vertiginous and insignificant in the face of the turns of stardust and entropy. She knew how small and impossible she was, how miraculous in this one bright turn of a planet around a perfect star. She knew because she had been born at just the right time to just the right people to have created her just so, irreplaceable and stunning enough to be the one he looked at and never looked away from. She was the reason he’d stayed, hoping that one day she’d come home. She’d come home to him. She covered her mouth with light fingers and thought of him, let him break through her mind like wildfire- burning away the doubt and the fear. 

“Max.” She said his name like a sigh, like it was the last word she would ever want to say. She said his name like an exhale, automatic and necessarily full of aching. “I haven’t give-”

Her phone lit up, starting to vibrate with an angry and determined ferocity. She startled hard, scrambling a little and slipping on the edge of the bunker entrance. She managed to get a hand out to keep from accidentally falling down the shaft, eyes wide as she panted. Her phone hadn’t stopped. It layered vibrations on top of itself, one text received. Another. Another. _Another_. The noise of it a constant low grumble that was nearly as fast as her heartbeat. She scrambled away from the yawning opening and wobbled to her feet, nearly fumbling her phone in her hurry to get it out of her pocket. She half dropped it twice, reacting like she would kick it before finally just slapping it between both palms, forcing herself to take a slow breath as she straightened, and looked at the screen.

The text notification window was popping up, fading out only to be immediately replaced by another. It layered fast, the little bars of reception weak, but finally able to reach her. 47 texts, 48, climbing. Sliding underneath both of those were voicemail notifiers. Kyle had actually called her. “Michael?” She stared at her phone, voice cracking before she coughed and tilted slightly, careful of the lip. “Michael!” She hit call back, pulling her phone to her ear even as it kept vibrating. “You better get up here!”

Kyle picked up before the phone seemed to ring, both of them sitting on the line in silence for a moment. “Liz?”

“Ky-”

“I can’t get ahold of Alex. Something is wrong. I can’t get ahold of him and he never does this. I-”

“Calm down,” Liz cupped the phone against her ear with both hands, turning away from the manhole and towards the front bow of the Airstream. She tucked tighter to block the wind, cutting out the static. “Kyle, what do you mean you can’t get ahold of Alex?”

“What about Alex?” Michael’s head popped up out of the bunker entrance, hair flopping wildly around his face. “Liz?”

“Liz! Pay attention.”

“Everyone stop talking,” she yelled, pointing at Michael where he was heaving up and out of the bunker- grace of long practice making her narrow her eyes. “You, wait a second.” She blew out a breath. “Kyle, you talk. I’m putting you on speaker.” 

“I found Arizona.” Kyle’s voice was stiff, like he was projecting directly at the little microphone in his phone. She could almost picture him talking into the flat of his palm, eyebrows drawn together while he concentrated on keeping his words clear and precise. There was a little scuffle and a laugh from the other end, the impression of at least a dozen voices somewhere he was. “She says hi-”

“It’s 321 dollars you dick,” came a woman’s voice. 

She heard Kyle shushing her and then there was a regular bump as he started walking somewhere. “I found what my Dad was hiding. It’s a lot. I tried to call Alex.” A screen door opened with a long wail of rusty hinges and slapped back against the frame, everything going quieter, his voice clearer as he spoke. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of him for two days now. I thought he was just in the bunker with no reception, but I’m starting to get worried.” She heard the way his voice was going fragile, stretched tight. Liz could imagine how he must be pulling at his hair the same way he had in high school when he’d been so worried before a game, before a test, before scholarship season, before his father’s elections. 

“Breathe Kyle.”

“Where’s Alex, Kyle?” Michael crowded closer, talking at her phone.

“I don’t fucking know, okay? I don’t think he’s in the bunker. I need you to go check on him. I couldn’t get ahold of anyone. I tried you both like a billion times.”

“You called _me_?” Now, Michael’s voice went soft and worried, brows drawing together.

“Focus, guys!” Liz slapped at his hand when he reached to take the phone from her. “We were in the science bunker.”

“What is my life? The bunkers have names. Fuck.”

“I just got all your messages. I have some missed texts from Maria, but they were from day before yesterday?”

“I can’t get ahold of Isobel,” Michael informed her, his phone out and pressed to his ear.

“I’m about two hours out,” Kyle said. “Can you check the cabin. He might just be outside cell service. If he’s not there, I’m texting you the address for the bunker. I’ll get you my code so you can get in.”

“I’ll check snapchat and see if I can find where Maria is,” Liz looked at where Michael was pacing back and forth in quick little strides. He finally looked up at the sky and shook his head once, blowing out a long breath. He glared at the round edge of the bunker cover and it heaved closed with a heavy metallic thud. 

“I’ll head out to the cabin now.”

“I’m going to um. Well,” Kyle paused and huffed one of his thoughtful laughs. “I’ll bring the cavalry.”

**

Maria didn’t know what was happening, just knew that somewhere in this darkness, somewhere in this echoing darkness Isobel glowed bright as a shooting star. She knew that something was happening, that Isobel was lunging, was pushing and threatening Alex in a way that seemed impossible. She knew that Isobel was reaching inside of him, could hear his scream as it shattered in the black. 

There was nothing but the three of them in this inky empty space and that simple animal scream. There was nothing but the faint effervescent glow of Isobel’s skin, her pale hair like starlight as she roared. Maria watched the peel of her lips from her teeth in slow motion, stuck in halftime as she tried, reaching and pulling for the impossible forward motion. Alex looked so young in that half second before he could react. She saw the way his eyes went wide and inevitable- the way he wanted to fight her off, defend himself before she touched and he exploded outward, head back, arms and legs flung to the corners as he arched, electric as she dug into him. Maria managed to get her hands on Isobel, feeling the wild electric gasp caught in her throat, catch her breathless and stunningly _alive_ as she melted into the oncoming storm. She felt herself slot tight behind Isobel, found herself layered on top of the other woman, tucked and folded into the whole of her, joined at the core of them by a thick wild energy that crackled and pulled at her, pulled her impossibly closer as Isobel flexed and grabbed at the thing she’d sensed inside of Alex.

The ticking was everywhere. It clattered against the nothingness. It echoed off her teeth. Maria felt it in her bones.

Time was running out and Alex was screaming, tears running in quick blood trails from the corners of his eyes to the soft hair at his temple, mouth peeled back and teeth bared: primal as he fought for something he thought was the core of himself.

The world snapped shut, spinning down to a single point of light before she stood shoulder to shoulder with Alex somewhere in a far off desert. She looked at where he was watching himself. The night air was cold, surprisingly crisp despite the small patches of burning that scented the air acrid and sharp. She covered her mouth, watching the way her friend was on his back in the dirt, staring blankly at the sky.

“I thought I was going to die here,” he said after a long moment. She glanced over and he hadn’t looked away, was still looking down. He shifted his weight, moving from foot to foot and exhaling a soft sad sound at the realization that right then he was whole. Behind her she could feel Isobel burning on the horizon, the light creeping in with the crackle of gunfire, but far off for now like some wild battle happening just off screen. “I lost seven men.” He swallowed, eyes flicking to the hint of mangled bodies heaped on the edges of the moment. She heard the sound of people moaning, the soft sobs of someone wanting their mother. She heard his name, the question in the dark, pleading with him. “I was trapped.”

She watched the specter of him in the dark, the flickering light of the fading fires catching his face in relief, shadows dark and skin filthy, soot staining his nose, a gash across his forehead in a quick angle deep enough that she could almost see the flash of bone. He had stopped struggling, tear tracks in the filth on his face. He had stopped fighting and just lay in the dirt, blood pooling thick and black as tar under him. She could see the slight waxen tremble that flickered under his skin. She watched him dying. She watched him as he sighed, eyes full of wonder as he stared up through the dark at the sky- at the stars. She swallowed, listening to him speak. Off in the distance the sky was lightening. “All I wanted was to come home.” 

He didn’t look at her when she reached and took his hand in hers. He didn’t look over as she took the half step closer, shoulders touching as he managed a shaky breath. “I was alone. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to be alone anymore, Maria.” He was speaking with a quiet passion, pushing the words past his teeth like they were stones pushed uphill. His brows drew together as he struggled for the truth. “I was sure I was going to die and all I wanted was to-”

“You’re not alone now.”

He squeezed her fingers. “I failed them.” He wet his lips and closed his eyes. “I’m going to fail all of you too.”

“Liar,” she breathed, smile going soft and warm. She loved him, a quiet and easy love that had been with her for so long. He didn’t look up and somewhere in the dark she heard ticking.

“Let’s go home,” she told him, voice soft as she turned, moving between him and the past that was sprawled in the dust of a foreign country. His past and it’s body count. His past and the pain of surviving. She pulled their hands up, kissing his knuckles and ducking to catch his eyes. “Alex? Let’s go home.”

He didn’t move, wetting his lips and the rain started, a few drops hissing against the twisted metal of the wreck, hissing and ticking into the same rhythm that flooded the landscape. The rain started and it was a breath, two, before the downpour drowned the scene away, melting it and him away from between her fingers. She looked around, turning in a quick circle and finding a small silver path humming in the dark, a heat vision that rippled and shivered as she touched it. She heard Isobel screaming in the mist, heard Alex fighting and the soft animal grunts of someone taking a punch. 

This was it. This was the moment. She heard the soft ticking in the raindrops. She heard the click of it in the sound of her feet as she started to run. She heard it in her heartbeat, in Alex’s breath, in Isobel’s screams. It filled the dark, pressed icy fingers against her, pushed at her, wanted her out. It wanted her _gone_. 

Maria sprinted along the shivering silvery mist, following the path to Isobel. It was familiar now, her feet sure as she dug deep, pressed to run faster. She ran past the blurred edges of memories, some hers, some Alex, some Isobel. She coughed around the way everything was thickening, going hot and terrifying as she got closer. 

In the edge of the dark she found them, Isobel standing over him, his hands wrapped around her wrists where they met his chest, hands plunged inside of him. She watched him struggle against her, watched the way Isobel went regal and merciless. She watched and saw the darkness that had wormed its way inside him, the way Isobel pulsed with light, pastel and stunning, glowing in the dark that was licking up and around him, crawling over his skin and pressing into his mouth, covering his eyes as he raged- struggling against her. Maria saw the thing that Isobel had found, the staining hatred, the fear, the blind impossibility of being consumed by hate. She didn’t slow, skidding and sliding helplessly to crash against them, curling against Isobel’s back and reaching to cover Alex’s hands where he fought the other woman. 

“Alex,” she whispered, voice soft and warm around the fight that was happening. She stroked her thumbs over his knuckles, quiet and pushing love and care at him, pushing strength and love at them both. “Alex. Let go.”

He gritted his teeth, so used to fighting, clawing and struggling as Isobel’s hands reached into him. He was wild with it, the fear of being known. The fear all consuming.

“Let go.” She whispered it this time, gentle as a lullaby. She saw the moment he stuttered in the fight, the moment of doubt where he paused. She saw the moment he let someone love him and it sounded like his name in Michael’s voice. It sounded like the soft thud of a hat on linoleum, the breathy laugh of teen love. She smiled at him, chin tucked over Isobel’s shoulder as she held his gaze, the black fading away from his eyes, leaving his pain, _his_ longing, the hate, the love, all of him in that moment and she sighed. “That’s it.”

Isobel snarled, grasping at the fading dark as it pulled tight to his center and yanked, rearing back and pulling an inky shape that snapped and clawed at her. She stared at it, calm and curious. It screamed, hole filled with slick wet teeth gaping open. It sounded like too late, like time too far past. It sounded like failure.

Alex scrambled back, panting and gasping as he stared at where Isobel was holding a shadow shaped like his father. She held it up by the neck, straight armed and vicious as she stared at it. The blackness smiled at her, a gold ripple flooding through it, lighting up an ancient language before fading and the black peeling away to leave Jesse Manes staring back at her. “You won’t win. Your kind never does.”

Maria didn’t blink when Isobel snapped his neck and let the body fall. The ticking stopped, the silence deafening and thick. Isobel turned, both eyebrows quirking in a small smug smile as she wiped her hands against the thighs of her dress, the dark fading away in slow Gaussian glow. She looked at where Maria was standing and wet her lips, smile soft and hopeful before the whole space disappeared and Isobel crumpled to the floor of the cell. Maria had a second to be startled before turning and running to the metal toilet, sick and helpless to it.

**

Alex startled, forcing himself to stay still as he slammed back into the present, into his body. He kept his hands loose, careful of the panel that was under his fingers, the leatherman half cracked into the casing. He shook, the waves of nausea crashing through him and he swallowed it back, swallowed it down. The hallway was still silent, the air just a gentle stroke from the vents high in the ceiling and down the echoing cement structure. The lights hadn’t changed, the re-bar steepling above them. Alex glanced back over his shoulder to the closed cell. The first lock panel open and dangling by the thread of careful wires, it didn’t twist in the slight breeze, weighted and waiting where he’d left it. He had no concept of how much time had passed. It could have been seconds, hours, minutes. He took a long slow breath, chest lighter as he exhaled.

“Keep pushing,” he muttered, gritting his jaw and turning back to the task at hand with a blissful single minded determination. He had an objective. He had a purpose. He had a plan of attack. He had found himself again.

The shell cracked open, the heat of the battery packs a small soft puff of hot plastic scent as he pried it apart with careful fingers. He kept his shoulder against the wall, keeping his weight on his leg, flexing the knee on his residual limb to keep the blood flowing as he traced the internal circuitry with careful eyes. It matched the one outside his cell. It had the same stunning overlay, the same simple back door bypass that couldn’t be a mistake. Flint had planned for a way to escape. He’d planned a way out.

“Keep _pushing_ ,” he repeated, the same single phrase that had been drummed into him at the academy. Keep pushing as he shook through the repetitious sets of pushups. Keep pushing as he groaned and huffed wild noises through the burn in his stomach as he crunched into countless sit ups. Keep pushing as he flung himself from the high wall, repelling in one quick burning line of rope against his palms and the thud of both feet against the ground. Keep pushing as he ran, ran with two feet fleet and light past the finish line. Keep pushing as he pulled himself upright through the pain of intense PT, learning to move forward on a foot that didn’t feel, metal and off balance. “Keep pushing. Keep pushing, Manes.”

“Bless you, Flint,” he muttered, closing his eyes at the sight of the careful tangling in the wires, the systems set to activate from several different angles but to reset if one small piece was disturbed. He blew out a breath and set the edge of the tiny metal saw from the leathermen under the lip of the class 2 transformer, watching the line of sautering that connected it to the solenoid. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense to have a secondary kill switch protocol on something with an actuated battery power. He closed his eyes, sending a quick prayer up to whatever was listening. Whatever was out there that hadn’t let him die that day in the dirt. Whatever had put him in this moment at this time to be the one to take this chance. He tightened his shoulders, locked his jaw, and levered the transformer up with a sudden flash spark that sounded so loud in the silence as he held his breath.He stared at the wires, the veritable rainbow neatly spaced to keep the power limited sets safe from the delimited actuary. “You knew he’d come for you too.”

Nothing happened and he exhaled shakily, heart pounding around the intense and unrelenting fear that he’d accidentally trigger an explosion. He could feel the sweat prickle along his hairline, the cold of it slicking his spine and sticking the gray shirt to his skin. He swiped his brow against his shoulder and focused. He shifted his balance carefully so he could slip the small needle nosed pliers out to swap with the tiny metal saw tucking away at the same time. He swallowed, tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth as he carefully touched the tips to the blue wire. 

“Please be what I think you are,” he whispered and tugged, pulling the null grounding wire from the socket with a wince that shuddered through him, tense in his stomach and knotting the muscle in his calf. He could feel the phantom of a charlie horse attempting to twist in the space his right leg had been. He could feel it in the arch of his left foot and wiggled his toes, tucking them under to crack lightly before taking the exposed wire and hissing a soft whine of hope as he touched it to the battery. 

The lights flickered once and a soft chirp of sound floated from the open reader. He saw the internal chip flash red twice, panic clawing up and into his throat. He had a moment where he could see the way the whole building would go white with fire, the way he would be here and then gone between one breath and the next. He knew with an intense surety that he’d killed them all. 

The chip flashed red again before it clicked to green and the doors hissed open silently. 

Alex Manes sagged against the cement wall, staring at where Maria was carefully peering out of the cell with a wild startled smile, eyes welling with relief. “It worked.”

**

The Chevy didn’t really push past 65 without protest. She was an old girl with aching joints that creaked along the bumpy back road that led to Alex’s cabin. She’d huffed grumpily along the highway, shimmying a little when Michael pushed her past fifty and rumbling angrily at 65. He pushed her faster, stroking over the shuddering dashboard and murmuring sweet nothings at her engine when it started to clatter spark plugs at 70. Michael drove stiff backed, windows closed and shaking in the doors until he reached to crank it open just slightly, the cold of New Mexico twisting into winter flooding the cabin as he reached back to open the sliding back window, the loud thrum of wind in his ears dissipating as he raced through the dark. His right headlight was starting to go, the beam a lighter amber than the left, it caught the yellow eyed look of deer by the side of the road-bounding startled out into the prairie. He made a note to reattach the deer whistles that had finally fallen off, the stickers cracked and melted from too many summers.

He’d found the bunker, following the directions Kyle had texted him. A few older oaks were dropping leaves as he parked. He’d managed to tap through the safety sequence Kyle provided, hanging up as soon as the door heaved the locks open and rolling his eyes at the indignant huff on the other end. He swallowed, skin crawling as he ducked into the shadows, leaving the night sky behind and listening to the old halogens crackle on, clattering down the hallway and littering stale green light down an outdated floor pattern. He’d called Alex’s name, echo short in the hallway and flat sounding, the heavy cement walls muffling everything close. 

The space itself was huge, startling in its implication- the hatred and fear made visible, made tangible, armed. He’d paused at the top of the stairs, mouth dropping open as he took in the sight. Caulfield was razed, nothing but rubble and ash. This Bunker implied so much more; so much more planning, delicate articulation of targeted destruction. He swallowed down the vague feeling of dread, knowing that families had sat at the table in the center and planned how to destroy his own. People had kept careful notes, spilled coffee on pages of data, eaten doughnuts and laughed around the endless raging violence done in the name of science. 

Alex wasn’t here. He didn’t glance up from a computer and frown at Michael in confusion. He didn’t come stumbling to a stop out of one of the side doors. He didn’t carefully close a file folder and tilt his head in question. Michael could see him in a thousand different places here, a thousand different possible solutions to the simple problem: _where was Alex Manes_?

There were a few comic books tucked under thicker cryptolinguistics texts. Piles of manila folders with the sturdy black block print of the military sprawled languidly over the center table, pages of one open fluttering in the circulating air. Everything seemed paused in their careful sorting. There were two power bars next to a coffee mug, plain pale blue with a deep round base. Michael hopped the steps, crossing to the coffee. The surface had skimmed over, cold and congealing in the sealed room. He inhaled, looking around before shaking his head and closing the open file. He checked the side near the lockers, the apparent bunk rooms, the bathrooms with their open gym style showers, and every other door he could find. He’d known Alex wasn’t there from the moment he parked, but he’d been wrong before.

[sms] no luck  
[sms] this is the only secret bunker you have, right?

There was a pause and Michael watched the three dots start and disappear a few times before Kyle finally answered.

{sms} fuck  
{sms} no  
{sms} you’re going to have to check the murder basement  
{sms} not actual murder  
{sms} or even a basement technically

“Jesus, Kyle, what the fuck?” Michael swiped up and thumbed into a call, glowering at a patch of weeds that looked silvery blue in the scraps of moonlight. “Murder basement. Are you fucking serious?”

“Chill. I said the same thing.” Kyle didn’t bother with basic hellos, just rolled right into the conversation. There were muffled voices around him and the creak of a bad u-joint. “You’re going to have to go to the cabin. We, um-”

“You what, Valenti?” Michael was already in motion, swinging up into the truck and shoving his phone between his shoulder and his ear, starting the engine with a long twist of the keys. She didn’t like the cold. 

“So, we never managed to get to the part where his Dad tried to shoot me and I put him in a coma. Didn’t come up, but, to be fai-”

“You _what_?”

“I put his Dad in a coma after he tried to shoot me.” Kyle spoke slowly with a pause between each word. Michael could almost hear the smug smile as he continued. “You’re getting why I wanted that white board now, aren’t you?”

“I don’t fucking care about a god damn white board, Valenti. Where’s Jesse Manes?”

Michael was racing against the possibility of pain. He curled both hands around the steering wheel, flexing and wishing for the first time in his life he had a different car. He dialed Alex, listening to the brief intermittent ringing before it clicked over to voicemail- Alex’s voice low and smooth, deftly professional against the growing fear curling under Michael’s skin. He hung up, dialing Isobel. She would have simply sent him to voicemail after the first ring, he was used to being left on read. It rang and rang. Her voicemail sounded delighted, picking up around a laugh and a little breathless.

He tossed the phone down on the bench seat and tried to focus on the road in front of him. The cabin was out on the edge of town, past city limits and starting to fold into the ridging foothills. The lines in the road ticked back silently, the headlights casting golden light in small circles that barely pushed into the deep of night. Out near the horizon a storm was crackling awake, a few strobed flashes of lightning catching the shrubby plains and the darker track of trees following a creekbed.

If he took a right, jumping over the curb and slowing to rumble out into the desert he could hide in his memories. He could hide in the way Alex had looked at him June 14th, 2009. He could hide in the way he’d stalked close to where Alex was sitting on the back tailgate of his Chevy, the blankets tossed loosely over the metal. He could think about the way he’d swallowed, watching his mangled fingers touch the bend of Alex’s knee. Michael could get lost in the way Alex had just whispered his name and traced the scar tissue, fingers gentle in the starlight. They could barely look at each other. They could barely stand the sight of all the pain that was between them now, Alex’s hair cut short and tight to his head, the earrings and septum piercing gone. He was leaner, whippet thin and a tangle of tawny muscle and competency. Michael was paler, waiting for summer to burn him dark, touching the tips of his hair nearly blond. He remembers the way his name had sounded, two syllables on Alex’s tongue. He could never forget.

They had seventeen hours. They had seventeen hours and nine of them had been wasted trying to avoid and circle around this thing between them. Michael had finally gotten him in the truck, gotten him in the truck to take for a ride. He’d been so aware of Alex in the cab, the way he stared out the window for the first ten minutes of the drive. Alex seemed to exhale and relax, body finally going loose where Michael could slide his hand across the bench and touch the edge of his pinky to Alex’s thigh. He’d turned then, watching Michael with a focus that burned along his skin, like the threat of flame. Alex had been so quiet and Michael was forever stumbling over his words, shifting and pulling them out of his pockets like they were covered with lint: never good enough, but all he had. When they parked Alex had gotten out of the truck silently, glancing back at Michael with a heavy question of want. Michael stared at the moon as the back of the truck dipped under Alex’s weight. He’d stared at the stars before he’d managed to turn. Michael tried to look everywhere but Alex until the courage and need sparked in him and he simply looked up. Alex was already looking at him. 

“Might rain tonight,” Michael managed, wetting his lips.

“I don’t mind.” Alex didn’t look away, voice gone lower, breathy as he watched Michael, eyes liquid in the dark. Michael swallowed visibly, taking a slow step forward and touching his fingers to Alex’s knee. He couldn’t change the scars, couldn’t change the twisted broken bones healed wrong. He couldn’t change the past. Alex was brilliant and brave. He was warm and touching his fingers with a look that shuttered closed around a wild startled look of pain. Michael didn’t want to hurt him. He needed Alex to believe the impossible. He needed him to know that it didn’t matter, not really.

“Alex?”

“Guerin, I don-” Michael had ducked and kissed him silent in the dark in June. He didn’t see him again until the next August.

He took the left out of his memories and a left off the county highway at a squeal of tires, the dust flinging up as the wheels spun for a second in the gravel, tailgate fishing back and forth until the tread caught and stuttered forward. Michael Guerin drove like he’d stolen her, listening to the way Isobel’s phone went to voicemail again. He dialed Alex. 

No answer. There was no answer and he was thumping over the pitted back road, the suspension creaking and bucking like a disgruntled horse. He held on, easing through the wild wobble as he kept pushing her further. “C’mon,” he whispered, ducking to look through the windshield and up at the sky when a thundercloud lit up silently over by the mountains, lightning crackling through the dark and then fading away. 

The cabin inched into view as he rolled around the curve just a little too fast, the gravel kicking up behind him and peppering the road like buckshot. He skidded to a stop, the headlights pointed at the front door, the windows dark. He knew Alex wasn’t home, he knew it before he’d even thrown the Chevy into park, slamming out the door and running with a little scramble to the porch. He hopped the steps, boots clattering against the wood and he glared at the door, lock nearly exploding open as he pulled with his mind. 

“Alex!” He grabbed the door frame, pulling himself to a stop as he peered into the dark. He gritted his teeth, turning and slapping the light on, fumbling through the porch light before finding the switch to the living room. The room was empty, coffee table sitting in front of the scratchy looking couch that still had the tangle of blankets and pillows Kyle had been sleeping in. He shoved it aside with a startling scrape of wood on wood. The basement hatch unfurling in the breath after as Michael snarled, anger making him stronger. He stalked to the edge, scrambling down into the flickering lights. The bed was a mess of sheets, a few drops of blood and the silent machinery left unplugged and useless. Jesse Manes was gone.

He pulled himself back up to the living room, the front door wagging like an indignant finger at him where it was left ajar. To the right Alex’s car keys dangled on the line of wooden hooks. He whistled, hoping vainly for the sound of clawed paws or the short wavering howl of the hound. 

Nothing.

The cabin was empty, hollow without Alex inside and waiting to be filled. He huffed an angry sound, turning and stepping into the kitchen, boot crunching broken glass. He froze, looking down and staring at the broken bottle that had splashed across the floor. The drink sticky and dried to the tile. The bottle cap was under the table and there were small tracked pawprints that had collected dust that roamed from the kitchen to the bedroom and back. Michael pulled out his phone, dread curling deep inside him, cold and consuming. The cups and plates started rattling in the cabinets, the doors clattering against the wood. He backed up, feeling the way everything seemed to pull tight around him, taut and welling, tickling heat across his palms and up the back of his neck. He managed to get out of the house, windows rattling in the frames. He made it outside before his fear and impotent rage exploded outward.

The Chevy rocked on its struts, creaking as the windows rattled. A tree branch cracked and fell to the ground further out, the rattle of release spreading outward as Michael gripped his phone. He dialed the one person who would understand. The storm lit up over the horizon again, the rumble far off, threatening without teeth. He could see the outline of the cabin in relief against the rambling white of strobe lightning. He could see the trees in silhouette, his Chevy gone shades of gray. Behind him Alex’s cabin was warm, inviting and hopeful. The phone rang twice before Kyle picked up.

“He’s not here. Someone took him. Jesse is gone.” 

“I’m on my way,” Kyle answered. “Don’t do anything stupi-”

Michael hung up and tucked his phone back in his pocket, staring out over the yard. Alex was out there, somewhere out there in the dark. 

**

Arizona had a 1977 Econoline Conversion van with burgundy and orange patterned original interior. It swayed along the high mountain switchbacks with its nose pointed downhill at a precarious angle. Kyle held his soda on the small well maintained formica table top that sat between the two long blanket covered bench seats that could fold out into a bed. The burgundy fringe along the dividing curtain waved loosely in the light blow of air from the cracked vent on the roof. Just inside the two doors was a small utilitarian kitchenette a gas powered single burner and a small black microwave set into a rack of built in shelves and drawers. The screen of curtains kept the front seat from the back area was sliding slightly open and Kyle would catch glimpses of Rosa singing along with Arizona in the passenger seat. The music from the speakers muffled slightly, but there was a pair of large expensive headphones plugged into the ceiling with an adaptor cable.

Kyle glanced across the table at where Levi was watching him. They swayed together, the group of them in the back, rolling in an almost heavy awkward silence on the adjacent bench seats in the back. The other man was placidly handsome with bright blue eyes,strong jaw, broad shoulders over thick wrists, dimples, and sandy blond hair. Kyle gave him a quick watery smile, twisting the can of soda between his fingers and glancing to the front when the entire van rocked precariously from side to side followed by a muffled apology and some quiet smothered laughter. The little blond, Cerin, had piled into the van after Levi, Davi gangling in after her, long limbs folding up to tuck under the small table. Rosa had refused to sit in the back with them, calling shotgun before anyone even considered it.

“I appreciate this,” Kyle finally said, grabbing the table when the van lurched again, glancing to the front before looking to where Levi just gave him a small smile. The Runaways played on the other side of the curtain, the rolicking guitar riff matching the tempo of the van swaying along the switchbacks, the scrape of brakes a back beat.

Levi glanced to the side, catching Davi’s eyes and they both went that sort of gummy still that meant they were speaking to each other.

Kyle was never going to get used to the feeling of complete otherness that shivered through him when it happened. The boy finally nodded once and leaned back, glancing over at Kyle. 

“We always hoped that some of us weren’t taken. How many made it?” Davi had a heart shaped face with a full mouth, dark skinned with dark eyes and thick brows. He’d folded into the space, legs too long to fit comfortably under the table and newly healed fingers drumming on the table top.

“I only know three,” Kyle said, taking a sip of the soda that was slowly going flat. “Maybe four?” He wasn’t sure why he was being so reticent, but it felt like edging the line of HIPAA. That uncomfortable feel of information that wasn’t his to share. Davi nodded, wetting his lips and tugged at one of his tight curls before glancing back to Levi.

“So few?” Levi finally asked, voice low and sad, a deep sort of exhaustion coloring the way his shoulders shifted and Kyle could only hold his blue gaze.

“That I know of.” Kyle nodded, wetting his lips. The van shuddered once, the brakes singing slightly before it seemed to thump over a set of rumble strips- the noise echoing loudly before it hit flat land and slowly accelerated. “How many were there?”

Levi wet his lips, fingers stroking the bottom hem of his flannel as he thought. From behind the curtain Rosa and Arizona started screaming the chorus to Cherry Bomb, the van’s speed finally rolling smooth. “All that was left of us.”

**

The Wild Pony parking lot was empty, a white paper bag rumbled against the outside wall, trapped in the eddy of wind between the dumpster and the back alley. Maria’s Volvo wasn’t there and Liz sat for a second, squinting through the windshield at the paper taped to the doors. It was a bright yellow with the official looking writing of some city ordinance number. She attempted to creep closer, wheels rocking off the cement abutment before she gave up and threw the Toyota in park. She had her phone out, listening to Maria’s voicemail again as she got closer, reading the poster with a deepening frown.

BUSINESS CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE CHAVEZ COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT EFFECTIVE DATE: immediately TO LICENSEE/OWNER OF ESTABLISHMENT: Under CCC 4-4-285 Public Safety Threat - Summary Closure, the Chavez County Sheriff’s Department has issued an order requiring the immediate cessation of all business activities at, and the closure of this establishment. The Chavez County Sheriff’s Department has determined that this establishment presents a public safety threat due to a violent offense occurring at this establishment during the establishment’s operating hours, involving the licensee/owner, or its employees, agents or patrons, or otherwise involving circumstances having a connection to the operation of this establishment. The Chavez County Sheriff’s Department has determined that continued operation of this establishment presents a danger to the public and has ordered its Summary Closure. The licensee/owner has the right to request in writing, within three business--

“Holy shit, Maria?” She looked around and exhaled. She’d been so focused on her own life, her own problems. She’d been so focused.

“Your magical magnifying mind, cariñito,” her mother would whisper, tongue sticky with tequila as she brushed her hair back. “En lo que te centras es lo único que ves. Look upcariñito. El mundo es un lugar especial.. Full of terror and wonder.”

She dialed again, sending out a quick prayer in spanish to no answer. The highway lit up with a few cars speeding past, the neon sign rocking back and forth, the pony bucking to nothing, lighting the way to a dead end. 

Liz knows this feeling, the underlay of worry and dread. She knows the anxiety of wondering where someone she loved has gone. There were endless nights where she would pretend to be asleep when Her Dad checked on her, flash light clicking on and off with the open and close of the door. She would lay awake, pretending to read as she listened for the sound of tires in the alley. She wanted to know her Mother was home. She wanted to know that Rosa was safe. She wanted to get up and climb out the window to pull herself up to the roof. She could stand at the corner of the Crashdown sign, dark at night and rough with rust under her fingers. She wanted to lean out and stare over the city, find her mother’s car driving home. She wanted to find Rosa on the roof, haunting it like a ghost of who she used to be. She wanted so many things, but this worry, the constant prickle of danger and the need to keep track, keep records, keep time, kept her awake.

_Keep them safe_. Liz closed her eyes and let herself plan. 

“Little love, if you plan everything nothing can be special. A life without surprise is so boring. Que haya un cuento de hadas. Deja que haya amor, epic and endless all consuming love.” Her mother would sigh as she braided Liz’s dark hair, shaking her head as she combed the points of her long nails against her scalp. “You keep everything planned you will plan your way into a life unlived. Viaja. Ve mundo. ¡Vive una aventura!”

If she had a plan she had some control. She could follow the steps laid out in front of her. There wouldn’t be room for worry. There wouldn’t be room for doubt. There would only be the plan and the constant work to the result. She could disappear into it and find the solemn objectivity that coated her electric nerves. “Mimi. She would go to Mimi.” Liz nodded once, plan set.

“Sal afuera, cielo. Vive.”

She ducked back into the Toyota and set a course for the Sunset Mesa Assisted Living Facility. 

**

The main room of the underground compound was empty, Alex’s eyes scanning the space. Isobel and Maria were lined behind him respectively, tucked together. Maria had her fingers curled into the hem of his shirt and Isobel was gripping Maria’s hand. He kept his left arm back, corralling them as he leaned his weight carefully onto the crutch and took a second look to be sure. Isobel had glared at the cuffs until it had clattered open, falling to the floor with a heavy rattle of chain that had them staring to the newly opened door with wide eyes, frozen in place. Isobel had exhaled first. 

“No one is coming.” She tilted her head, eyes going far off and out of focus before she’d turned and stared to the left of the door. “That way.”

The long table sat empty, the light still draping lazy and white over the surface. The rack of servers blinked in chaotic green lights, processing some massive amount of data. He could see the four holes drilled into the cement where he’d been chained, the u-bolt removed. “Stay here.”

He started moving, feeling the light tug at the back of his shirt with soft fearful noises from Maria before he was easing out into the open. He slid along the wall, the texture of the paint catching the fabric of his sleeve and tugging it to the side as he slipped deeper, further past where he’d been chained. He was upright now, the room slightly off balance and off center now that he was tapping into danger. He hadn’t missed the small drawer under the table that Hunter had touched a few times, continuous and careful like reminding himself it was there. Alex knew that kind of touch.

Wo2 Pogue had teased him mercilessly about the way he would always touch the pocket just under his name when he stood up. “Worried you’re going to forget who you are, Manes?” She’d drawl, short hair plastered to her skull with sweat as she scratched at the freckled bridge of her nose. She was a short compact red-head from outside Hazard Kentucky- _we invented KFC y’all_ \- who ferried his squad from outside Fallujah to Abu Ghraib. She’d been broad shouldered and built like a tank with a thick neck and knotted calves. She’d grin at him around the gap in her teeth, nose tiny under the weighted shades she wore when she took the Blackhawk on a long bank, blades pushing wild raucous waves of sand into the air, startling a few goats into placid bleats as she swayed through the valley.

“When I have you to remind me, Pogue? Never.” he’d replied, smile crackling white around the way the desert burnished him darker, pale at the lines of his recent hair cut and along his temples where his sunglasses sat. 

“What’s in the pocket?” she asked finally, vodka bottle thumping plastic and cheap against the wall as she flailed the question outside the barracks. She’d leaned forward, pointing the thick bland base of the bottle at him, narrow eyed and curious until he plucked it from her with a shake of his head and took a pull.

“None of your damn business,” he’d answered. She never got the chance to ask again, shot down somewhere between Kamdesh and home. It was his letter. It was _his_ and it belonged to only him and the person who’d written it. The neat black print on graph paper was his constant reminder of why he was fighting this war. 

It was the touch of something that brought comfort in confusion.

“Hunter you idiot. Of course it’s a fucking glock,” he muttered, unsnapping the weapon from the harness inside the small drawer and ducking his eyes to do a quick check: flipping the safety and pulling the magazine catch back to glance at the chamber, noting the bullet with a quick nod and letting it slap back to position before dropping the magazine to count the rounds, full clip. He palmed it back to locked and loaded, lifting it in his right hand, left holding the crutch. It was awkward and unstable without the bracing hand and Alex shoved the longing to be whole into the tiny box he kept it in and glanced back at the girls. 

Maria had Isobel by two hands, one wrapped around her forearm as she white knuckled the tangle of their fingers in the other. He nodded at them and started toward the far door, checking the first with a quick glance through the thick porthole glass, watching the ammunition locker with a sinking feeling of a man realizing the war is far from over. This was an operation that was deeply funded by the count of weaponry laid out in the racks, the munitions neat and new, cutting edge as he gave up counting and looked back over the room, keeping an eye on the exits as they moved silently across the floor to the last door by the bank of monitors. He raised an eyebrow in question at Isobel who went still, maria holding her steady before she slammed back to present.

“Two? Maybe three?” She frowned, angry at the lack of clarity and Alex nodded, easing forward to take a careful scan through the porthole. “Mimi for sure. I know her now.”

He nodded and turned to the side, tilting his head to motion them behind him. They flattened against the wall as he cracked the control panel open with less finesse, smashing the butt of the glock into the side to get the faceplate to pop off. He handed the gun back the line, watching Maria just frown at it before Isobel took it from him, clearing the chamber and sliding the dropped round back into the magazine with a steady rhythm of practice. He raised both eyebrows at her and she shrugged, sniffing once and lifting the barrel to point around him at the doorway.

He found the null grounding wire and pinched it between his fingers and looked at them. “Three count. Three. Two.” He tensed, feeling the way cool understanding and autonomous trained movement settled into his bones as he pulled. “One.”

**

The parking lot was chaos. The orange lamp lights pooling weakly in the violent riot of blue and red and white strobing lights on top of a small army of emergency vehicles. She managed to park outside the ring of fire trucks, a few ambulances sitting shoulder to shoulder. The medical staff were bustling quickly from place to place, taking the vitals of several elderly patients who were sitting on stretchers. She managed to worm through the crowd, staring at the building with growing dread. Every light was out, the whole squat adobe building dark, catching life from the riot of lights splashing around the parking lot. She was taking the distance at a half jog when she startled to a stop, recognizing the beautiful sleek white lines of Isobel’s Audi.

The white SUV was sitting empty in the parking space. There was almost no sign of Isobel in the car outside of the stunningly pristine seats, the meticulously manicured interior kept spotless through monthly detailing. The tires shone, freshly washed and the hubcaps clean. Liz nodded once and pulled to look back to the blank and lifeless building, the doors wedged open and a few orderlies standing near the front with crossed arms and concern. Isobel had met Maria here like they’d intended. Something had gone wrong, something had gone wildly impossibly wrong and Liz was standing at ground zero- light catching her in half, lighting her up on the right and leaving her shadowed on the left. She’d been too caught up, too caught up in her own life to notice. She didn’t even know which room Mimi was in. She didn’t even know if Mimi was _here_.

The overhang kept the entry in shadows, the pavement flickering as Liz marched toward the front door. The low walls curving and smooth edged with a few scuff marks on the metal support beams. She glanced to the right, seeing the familiar boxy back end of the Volvo. Maria’s car was always unlocked, her front seat a mess of hair ties wrapped around the gear shift, a few necklaces and crystals hanging from the rear view. There was no sign of her there, just the empty non threatening car sitting in a parking spot. 

“Liz?” Sheriff Valenti was a thin woman with sharp cheekbones and warm brown eyes. She kept her dark hair back in a severe bun under the standard issue white hat. She was watching Liz with concerned eyes, frown pulling her full mouth into a thin line. “What are you doing here?”

Liz nearly cracked her head as she startled back out of the open door to Maria’s car, pulling a paper out of the cluttered center console and holding it up as she felt the panic crackle hot across her shoulders. “Just. I had to get this. Um.” She glanced at the paper, a tap receipt showing keg return fees. Kyle looked like his mother, Liz found herself thinking idly, all sharp edges and concern. “Keg thingy.” She tucked her lips over her teeth, eyes wide as she tried to act calm and normal. She gave Sheriff Valenti a quick smile. “Very important.”

“Do you know what happened here, Liz?” Sheriff Valenti narrowed her eyes, watching Liz with open concern.

“No clue.” She shook her head slightly, looking down and then back up when she noticed something dark and splotchy on the ground near the front tire. She bumped the door closed with her hip. “Is Mimi okay?”

The other woman’s hat was moving through shades of faded blue and pink before flickering back to white in the silent stream of strobing lights. It caught her hawkish nose in stark relief, gouging the hollows under her cheekbones gaunt. She looked over worked, over tired, and stretched thin. Max and Cameron both gone and she had a full on emergency rolling across her town. “I’ll check for you.”

“Thank you.” Liz wet her lips and tucked the receipt back into her pocket and moved to stand on top of the stain.

The older woman tossed her a shrewd look before someone called her name and she had to move on. She glanced back once before turning to give the paramedic her full attention. Liz exhaled, leaning back against the driver’s side door and carefully moved her foot. The dark stain smeared slightly, edges scuffing and flaking: blood.

She didn’t let herself scream just grabbed her phone and dialed Michael. “They’re not here.” She looked around the parking lot, the scene starting to feel like more than a typical emergency. “Something bad happened.”

**

“Alex is gone,” Michael replied, tucking the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he drove, straining through the dark as the Chevy whined at the push, engine starting to rattle and he clenched his jaw around the wince that particular noise brought.”Pretty sure Jesse Manes took him.” He was killing his engine. He was pushing her too hard, too fast and he snarled and pushed her harder. He had to get home. He had to get home and get to the research there. He had to find it. He had to find where Jesse Manes had hidden Alex. 

“Isobel’s car is here. So’s Maria’s.” Liz sounded fragile on the other end of the line, voice gone thin. “Michael-”

The road opened up and sprawled out in the dark. He was pushing for home, pushing for that bit of rusted out tin in a salvage yard. He was urging his Chevy faster as he tried to pull the world back on axis from where it’d been tipped. “Don’t say it.”

“Michael, there’s blood.”

“Liz, I need you to focus. Can you get that serum ready? I think I’m going to need it.” He swerved to avoid an armadillo that was wandering off the side of the road and onto the asphalt to warm itself. He knew this was how it worked now. That Alex could be close, could be hidden in plain sight. Michael had to figure out where. He’d missed so much not thinking to look and now with the piles of data that sprawled across his kitchen, across the table in the bunker he could pinpoint and predict the next action. 

It was fucking physics and Michael was an object in motion.

**

The lights had died, the flood lamps on the edges of the room kicking on and leaving lurid blue shadows draped across the space. The warning lights flashing over, peeling in silent alarm along the hallway in tick tock rhythm. He didn’t have time to change plans, to change course at the way the entire compound went dark and shadowed. Alex ducked around the corner, moving quick and steady down the hall. He could feel Isobel at his shoulder, gun aimed down the tile as they paced forward. Maria was behind them, keeping an eye on the door to their rear. They moved in synch, pushed together as a team and Alex didn’t have time to be proud, just continued slinking silently forward to the sound of voices that slipped from the far off alcove that the hallway opened into. He heard his father, heard his brother, and Mimi’s softer warm tone.

“Mom-”

Alex lifted a hand, cutting Maria off and pulling them to a stop before glancing to the right and nodding at Isobel. They were silent in the dark. She nodded back, eyes sharp as they approached the opening on quick bare feet, the padded tip of his crutch muffled as they crept close. He could hear his father to the left, his brother to the right, Mimi somewhere closer to his father. He could feel the way his stomach was going taut, the collection of years of endless trauma starting to coil bitter and tense under his skin. He knew that he needed to take a breath, pausing at the lip of the alcove, head down as he took a long slow breath and nodded once to Isobel. They had a second to consider, a second to take it all back and go and wander back down the hall to hide. They could pretend that this whole experience was nothing more than a bad dream, a fever of fear that spread through them, but Alex had a mission. He had civilians to protect. 

He had a war to win.

He lifted his hand, holding them for another breath and nodded at Isobel. They breezed around the corner, Isobel turning the gun on Harlan where he was standing by an open set of bay doors, the flood lights catching him in stark relief: all angles and dark shadows. Alex moved in a quick learned half hop, planting the crutch to toss his body at his father, getting between him and Mimi. They’d been standing in a small alcove off the hallway, the dark swallowing the space and then lighting up again in the alarm white. He and Jesse collided, brutal and abrupt as they crashed to the hard floor in a tangle. Alex was rolling, careful to stay low to his newly learned center of gravity as he swept out with the crutch. He caught his father in the jaw, watching his head whip to the side with the blow. Jesse spat blood, pushing to get up on straight arms, head hanging before he snarled, teeth stained pink in the intermittent light.

Alex heard Harlan laughing, the sound of delight on his brother’s flat voice almost as terrifying as the way his father said his name. 

He heard Isobel call his name, but he couldn’t look, eyes trained on the immediate threat of his father. Behind Harlan the dark yawned, emptying out into what looked like a parking garage, the fresh cement almost shiny and lined with five standard issue military Fords. He heard Mimi yell Maria’s name, voice clear and kept his focus on where Jesse Manes was panting, blood smeared at the corner of his mouth as he glared at Alex.

“Alex!” Isobel shouted, but he didn’t have time to look away. He had to take his father out, had to take out the threat. “I can’t hold him. Something’s wrong.”

Jesse Manes looked scared for a moment, eyes shifting to where Harlan was standing. Alex couldn’t help but turn, watching Harlan stalk forward toward Isobel with hooded eyes. His body language casual even as Isobel aimed at him. She was shaking, dark glower pulling her features into a tangle of worry and determination. The gun shook in her hands and she palmed her wrist, attempting to hold it steady even as Harlan shook his head at her. He tapped his temple with a long finger before reaching to pluck the Glock from her grip. “I said stop that.” He bared his teeth at her, sharp and cold and Alex had a bright and blinding moment of realization. 

“ _Harlan_? No.”

Harlan shook his head and turned that cold look on where Alex shifted, struggling to get his foot under him and back upright. Beside him, Alex heard his father inhale a sharp breath. Jesse Manes was terrified. Harlan tilted the weapon thoughtfully before sighing and cocking it with an easy thumb. Harlan moved before Alex could react, firing twice- right and then left. It was explosive in the enclosed space, echoing and shockingly bright in quick succession layering and blinding. Two shots. Maria screamed and he heard the sick sound of a slug hitting flesh to his left. 

“So noisy.” Harlan’s tutted, thoughtful even as Maria’s scream cut off and stuttered into pleading.

“Mom! No. No, no _no_. Stay with me. Okay? Mom!”

“You can chase me or-” Harlan tilted his wrist, gun loose in his hand as he checked the time. “You can try to save _Michael_.” Harlan’s tone didn’t waver, calm and even like he was reading from a book. “If only you could run.” The flat calculating look he normally wore settled over his face. He was watching Alex with a cold curiosity. 

The alcove flickered, lights brightening and then going dark as Harlan took a half step backwards and walked towards the line of vehicles, unhurried.

Three things seemed to happen all at once: Alex glanced to the left and watched a growing pool of slick black puddle under his father’s face, blue eyes open and staring blankly at the ground where he lay face down; Isobel snarled into stumbling motion, enraged as she swung around to see the chaos behind her; and Maria kept blood slick hands pressed to Mimi’s stomach, the creep of deep red spreading in a slow march through the white dress she wore in the flickering lights. In less than a minute Alex’s whole world changed. The Monster had been gunned down, replaced with something far more terrifying. His father was dead. His father was _dead_ and he was staring down at the body, the smell of blood thick in the air and all he could think was one word. 

“ _Michael._ ”

Alex’s world became startlingly simple. He blew out a long slow breath and turned, ducking to move to where Maria was frantically trying to stem the bleeding. “Isobel,” he snapped, calling the blond to focus and holding her gaze. “I have to go. Help her.” He nodded slowly until she was nodding along with him, snapping into motion now that she had an order to follow. 

She managed to hunker down next to Maria, ducking her gaze into the line of sight and holding her eyes. “Let me help,” she whispered, slipping the words under Maria’s tears and setting her hands where Maria’s were shaking, slick with blood.

Maria nodded slightly, face flecked with blood, a smear of it over her cheek, eyes gone wide with fear. “Don’t let her die.”

“I won’t.” Isobel nodded, wetting her lips and caught Alex’s eye over her shoulder. “Go. Why are you still here?” Even as she spoke her hands started to glow, eyes rolling back as she started to growl a long rough noise that twisted into a scream.

**

Frustration tasted like day old coffee and fear. Turns out, Michael was used to it, the taste familiar and tinny on his tongue as he picked up the next folder, flipping it open and starting to read. He’d been at it for what felt like hours, eyes tired and teeth nearly fuzzy with want of brushing. He could feel the way the air inside the Airstream had gone muddy with breath, overly warm and pressing closer as he fumbled to the next folder. He skimmed faster, pushing through the collection of military coding with a stumbling gaze. He was a mess as he sat at the small kitchen table. He’d slammed into his home, tossing the lid on the box to the side and starting at the top of the pile. 

Michael Guerin was good at focus, he’d been eleven when he’d stumbled upon the first piece of the spaceship out at Foster Ranch. He’d walked forty two minutes from the fenceline in a black eye, dislocated elbow, and a moth eaten blanket. He’d left the Home, determined to find someplace better, some place that actually wanted him. Michael needed some place that didn’t smell like smoke and fear, some place that didn’t smell like incense and cigarettes. 

He’d never found it in a place, only in the way Alex’s chest rose and fell in the moonlight that lingered on his skin.

At eleven he’d stumbled onto the golden shard of ship, crying out in the night at the way he’d jarred his injured elbow,. He’d strapped it down with an over large belt he’d stolen the last time the man, Paul, had fallen asleep in the overstuffed Lazy Boy. The wind tangled his curls as he walked, keeping the blanket tight around his shoulders as he moved towards the small scar in the earth, gone grassy with age. It had a plaque marking the crash site. Night after night he’d sat, gingerly easing to the ground and closing his eyes. The dairy ranch spread out in the dark, the windmill creaking to the east, catching the slight breeze and shaking from side to side. It needed to be oiled, the lowing of cattle a soft sound up in the rounded hills to the west. He could imagine the way the cows would wander down in the dawn in a clatter of cowbells. He could imagine the way the would startle if he was right. Their bovine shock as they scattered at the solid ring of pure white light, pure white light that meant someone was looking for him, someone was going to take him _home_.

In the end, it was always just him in the dark.

The dawn had broken over the horizon the next morning, tracing pale lines in the high clouds and tinting the world a dusty sort of pink. He’d been stiff, blue lipped with cold and damp from dew that would burn away as the sun rose relentless in the New Mexico sky. Michael Guerin was no stranger to constant and heartbreaking disappointment. 

He closed his eyes and thought of the relief he’d found the day he’d seen Max and Isobel at the public school. He’d been shoved off the bus, looking at the middle school with wary eyes as he watched the other kids move in an easy stream. He’d startled when he’d felt it, that easy understanding, warm and comfortable and just _there_. Max hadn’t looked over, smiling as he spoke, but Isobel had stopped, smile falling off her face as she turned and looked directly at him across the school yard. She’d been taller than Max, taller than him with her hair caught up in a half braid, pink shirt loose and flattering over her simple skirt. Michael had swallowed. It was a strange feeling: being known. 

The papers were starting to feel rough under his fingertips and he closed his eyes, focusing on the way it had felt, the way it had felt when Isobel Evans had crashed into his mind across the campus and stormed into his life. He focused on the feel of her, the strong silvery presence that crept in like a heat wave, constant and thrumming if he knew the right chord to follow. The twins were like a tune that lingered, stuck in the back of his head and all he’d ever had to do was listen, to follow the melody. 

There was one bright startled second when he realized that the world was different, opening his eyes to the pastels and light of the mindscape, but he could feel it differently, feel the way it had the minor key change of his tune, his thoughts. He stood, the Airstream cracking open and falling away and screamed, screamed for Isobel-

It echoed lightly, just the sound of a bell ringing off the mountains, ringing off the light and then she was there, on her knees and hands covered in the glossy slick of blood, hair wild and eyes determined. She was screaming, she was screaming around red hands and Michael could only watch until she glanced up. She looked at him and gritted her teeth as the scene came into sharp relief, a body bleeding under her hands and Maria across from her in the shimmery light. He watched them pull the woman up, hefting her into Isobel’s arms and stumbling in a desperate sort of dash to a line of cars that were rolling into focus. She glared at the engine, the spike of power stabbing at him as she got the vehicle started and turned to look directly at him. He felt her crash into him, felt the way her mind slammed against his and reeled at the sound of one word, one word shouted loud across time and space at him.

_RUN._

He slammed out of the mindscape, shocking straight and eyes wide as his head throbbed. He’d found her, he’d found her the way she’d always found him when she needed him. In his fingers was another bill of sale from the box. He almost crumpled it up in his hurry to try and follow the psychic scream. Michael nearly tripped trying to get out from the kitchen table, pausing to look back at the page. His brain ticked over, slotting moments into place like snapping the final piece into a puzzle board. He reread the purchase details, frowning at it before glancing down at the discarded pile on the floor. 

Alex had plucked his hand from the front of his ABU’s, fingers warm and lingering even as they argued in the afternoon heat. He’d taken a step back, deflecting and reluctant to start this dance again, to start the shuffle of Michael hoping and Alex walking away. “What’s the Airforce want with the land anyway? This is the third dairy ranch you’ve shut down.” Alex had paused, turning with his weight on the crutch and eyes flicking back to where Michael was standing.

“We’re building a new facility.” 

Michael had been so worried about the crash site that he’d missed the obvious.

“ _Son of bitch_ ,” he swore, pushing to his feet and dropping the file. He leaned over grabbing up the folders on the floor and started stuffing them into the box, out of order and catching against each other in his hurry. He stood, pushing around the table and reached to pull open the closet, digging through the mess of denim and flannel to the small safe in the back, thumbing through the combination and grabbing his revolver. He tucked it into the back of his jeans, sure the safety was on before starting towards the door. 

The dawn caught the dust of a vehicle racing down the path in a soft glow and Michael ducked back into the Airstream, watching the Explorer- casual gray and nondescript- push over the potholes and dart towards the fence around the Salvage Yard. He looked down, thumbing the revolver open and checking the bullets, seven in a neat circle that clicked snug with a flick of his wrist. He watched the SUV warily, letting the door swing back closed and ducking to peer through a tear in the newsprint. The Ford bounced, jarring and stuttering, like the gas and brake were mismatched and the engine would gun before the brake released and it shot forward in a sickening lurch. He cocked the revolver, stomach going tight at the threat, the sound of Isobel’s voice screaming at him to run. It wasn’t a suggestion, just fear made vocal.

He heard the honking and waited until the SUV skidded to an awkward stop, kicking a shower of gravel to ping off the hubcaps that dangled against the wrought iron gazebo he’d built out of boredom at seventeen. The vehicle sat silent for a second before the door opened and Alex nearly fell out of the driver’s side, swearing and grabbing back at the door to keep his balance. “Michael!”

Michael stood slowly, staring stunned at the wild and unfettered panic that was on Alex’s face as he yelled. “Get down!”

He didn’t recognize the sound of gunfire until his body reacted, dropping to the floor at the way it crackled, punching quick pitting holes into his home. He pressed to the floor, covering his head with his hands and stopped breathing, unable to think as the bullets ripped into his home with deadly ease, precisely paced and in easy bursts of five. It rattled and shivered through the dawn air, peppering from one side of his home to the other in a slow and determined sweep. 

He thought about popcorn and the sound of little kids screaming as they chased each other through the dirt paths of the drive in, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Alex sitting on his tailgate, smiling that soft smile with hair gone cow licked and eyes dark. He’d sipped beer and thought for a brief bright second that this- this moment was perfect. He was in love. He was in love with a beautiful man in the back of his truck. He’d thought for just a moment that they could have this. They were sitting so close their knees could brush and he was smiling that real smile, that one that would slide the corners of his mouth wide, willing and wanting. 

Michael thought about how much he loved Alex Manes at all the wrong times.

The gunfire crackled to an abrupt stop, the silence pressing heavy against his shoulders and forcing him to take a long breath, gasping into the way the light drew cat’s cradle in small slivers of dust riddled dawn, motes swirling like galaxies above him. He stayed down, pressed flat to the floor and hands over his head as he thought- mind a panicked blur of possibility. He’d been trapped inside, pinned down by the quick rain of gunfire. He was trapped and Alex was outside.

Michael Guerin was good under pressure, he could hold it together almost any time. He’d managed to run when his life had blown up. He’d survived foster homes and fists. He’d survived fire and hammers. He’d survived and now, with the cross hatched lace of bullet holes filtering the weak dawn light in tight beams above his head all he could think was _Alex is outside_.

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see where Alex was and could only hope that he’d taken cover behind the Ford he’d driven. Michael hoped that he was outside, breathing in long gulps as he plotted a plan that would pull Michael out from inside and tuck everything together without Michael losing anything else; without Alex losing _more_ of himself.

Michael was thinking about what blood felt like on his skin, panicked and pinned down when the front door slapped open, red laser sight sweeping over the interior before landing on him. “ _Jesus_ , get the fuck up,” Hunter Manes snapped, hair pulled back and with that same annoyed black eyed gaze Alex tossed him when he was being especially stupid.

There was a pause. There was a pause and Michael closed his eyes around the way hope and love broke in his chest and he had to push up on straight arms, getting his feet under him and scrambling out the door. Alex was panting in the parking lot, blood on his shirt and clothes covered in the red dust of New Mexico desert. Alex wiped at his mouth with the back of his wrist and locked eyes with Michael when he spilled out of the trailer.

There was a second of utter and _devastated_ relief, naked and shining out of Alex before he stopped. Michael exhaled and started down the half step, watching as Alex leaned his weight against the side of the standard issue gray Ford. Alex smiled at him, small and soft before he touched the blood on his shirt, face confused as the red bloomed larger. He looked up, tossing Michael a look that could only be an apology as his eyes rolled back and he crumbled where he’d stood.

“Alex!” Michael was at his side, missing a step and jarring as he stumbled, half crawling and pulling himself across the space in an indelicate scramble. He skidded next to him, watching the way Alex was choking on his own blood, eyes gone surprised as he arched a little. “No. No, don’t you dare. Don’t you fuckin-” Alex just coughed again, pink bubbles at the edges of his mouth as he labored, body spasming as he bled out. The heat of his heartbeat staining into Michael’s jeans, against his hands and Michael was so scared, so utterly terrified that the world went _dark_. 

Michael’s world went dark because there was only one bright spark to focus on. He could hear screaming, but it sounded far off, like a movie playing in another room he wasn’t invited to see. He could hear screaming, but there was only one thing that mattered, there was only one thing that _ever_ mattered.

Alex Manes smiled at him in the soft light of the moon, his eyes warm and liquid in the night. He looked silver, the curve of his collarbone perfect as a bird wing and Michael could only stare, breathless as he watched his fingers trace the soft line of skin at the pulse in his wrist, higher to the soft warm crease of his elbow, higher to his shoulder and across until Alex caught his hand under sleep warm fingers. “Guerin.” 

“You could stay.” Michael ducked, kissing that space just under Alex’s jaw, feeling the soft shiver as Alex shifted, tilting his head back and opening for his mouth. Alex would open for him. He listened to the breathy sigh and the way Alex’s fingers went absently tighter, like he could hold Michael here, hold him here in this moment the way Michael wanted to hold him.

Alex’s eyes fluttered open and Michael was caught in the heat of that dark gaze, the way the words seemed to swell silent between them, caught and tangled irrevocably. “I would.”

Michael smiled. It would be enough. It would have to be enough, this hope in the dark.

He found Alex under his hands, small and quiet, electric light that felt blue in his palms, fading and weak. He screamed, silent in this echoing dark, silent- but somewhere outside of this he could hear the way his voice broke, shattering as he pushed, coaxing that light brighter, coaxing it as the world around them exploded in a shower of sparks. He ducked, finding the Alex light in the dark and sighed, gripping him and pulling him back, pulling him back to him. He bent, touching his forehead to where Alex was crumpled on the ground. He’d always do this, always just plant his feet and give _everything_. When it was _Alex_ he would give everything, all of himself, every broken piece. 

He’d already given it to him so long ago. “ _Stay with me_.”

Michael heard the audible pop as the headlights on the Ford exploded as he slammed out of the dark, staring down at where he’d tried to drag Alex with him. Alex was still, blood on his mouth, blood on his breath, blood on his shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can only keysmash my undying love for my tireless and unflagging beta. You know this fic would never happen if you didn't let me whine nedlessly and flail about not wanting to write the next parts until you beat some sense in me.
> 
> comments are loved like something sacred and special.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex Manes came alive like he was surfacing. One moment Michael was screaming, hands red and burning hot with Alex puddled on the ground- a mess of blood and silence, but so impossibly still. One moment Michael was growling into the task of fixing something broken; he was so still under Michael’s fingers and that was impossibly, violently, and unequivocally wrong. Alex was never still when Michael touched him. The next, Alex Manes shocked awake- gasping and stuttering up with a flail of arms, hands grasping and reaching for anything solid to cling to. 
> 
> Alex couldn’t focus, couldn’t see more than a blur of shapes and shadows. The light was indistinct like being under water, the noises muffled as he gasped for air, taking deep lungfuls like he’d never have enough. He was clinging to the shape in front of him, clinging with his fingers tangled in the feel of over thin cotton, gone soft with too many washes, too much wear.

Alex Manes came alive like he was surfacing. One moment Michael was screaming, hands red and burning hot with Alex puddled on the ground- a mess of blood and silence, but so impossibly still. One moment Michael was growling into the task of fixing something broken; he was so still under Michael’s fingers and that was impossibly, violently, and unequivocally wrong. Alex was never still when Michael touched him. The next, Alex Manes shocked awake- gasping and stuttering up with a flail of arms, hands grasping and reaching for anything solid to cling to. 

Alex couldn’t focus, couldn’t see more than a blur of shapes and shadows. The light was indistinct like being under water, the noises muffled as he gasped for air, taking deep lungfuls like he’d never have enough. He was clinging to the shape in front of him, clinging with his fingers tangled in the feel of over thin cotton, gone soft with too many washes, too much wear. He gasped, blinking and startled back to life as he felt the way his whole body seemed suddenly alight- electric and buzzing. He could feel the tips of his fingers, the race of electric feeling skittering under his skin, the beat of his pulse, the ache of his lungs, the way he was trembling. He was alive. He was wildly, impossibly, achingly _alive_.

“Guerin?” He heard the way his voice sounded rough, uncertain and mildly admonishing, like he was using Michael’s name as both explanation and question.

“Yeah,” Michael laughed, and it was such a lovely sound Alex found himself nearly smiling in return. “Yeah, hey, hi. Don’t- don’t move. You probably shouldn’t.” He paused and Alex focused in, blinking as he wet his lips and tasted that specific sickly sweet copper. Michael swiped at his jaw with his forearm, hands slick and messy with blood. He was nodding, curls bouncing around his face and the nearly manic exhaustion that rimmed his eyes red and somehow more golden in the rising dawn. The sun was peeking over the horizon, just enough that long slim rays could tickle at the edges, haloing Michael in light.

“That is deeply unfair,” Alex heard himself say, voice gruff as he glared at how beautiful Michael was in that moment. “I was shot.”

“You were.” Michael’s brows shot up and he kept smiling at him, astonished and overjoyed, but crumbling at the edges with black looking exhaustion.

Alex was coming back to himself, aches burned away as he ducked his chin to his chest, reaching for the spot just under his collarbone where the blood was the thickest, hooking a fingertip into the bullet hole and nodding once. He blinked, shaking his head a little to clear the last of the confusion and glanced at Michael, eyes going wide. “You-”

“You’re my family, Alex.” 

Michael Guerin had made a habit of stunning him. He’d made a habit of taking his breath away. He’d made a habit of startling him out of the script- out of the way he expected conversations to go. He’d caught him off guard with questions, with kisses, with the simple act of being himself. Michael Guerin was kneeling in the dirt, covered in his blood with grease stains ground into his knuckles, and hair that Alex had to physically restrain himself from touching. Alex was tired of being startled by something that should be so simple. It didn’t have to be complicated. Not really. 

He could feel the way he was blinking, the way he was looking down and cataloguing each little bit of Michael in this moment, the way it was searing into his brain. He knew the pause had dragged on too long, but he finally settled into it- settled into the electric shock of loving him. He wet his lips and flicked his gaze away from where Michael’s mouth was faltering out of the smile into concern and up to his eyes to hold the gaze. Alex could never find the right words at the right moment, couldn’t just dig into his lungs and pull them out in a breathless rush like Michael could. It always felt like little land mines, something that he set between them and watched explode, indiscriminate and unintentionally violent. 

So he closed his mouth, eyebrows lifting soft and let his fingers curl around Michael’s wrist to slide higher, tucking under the curve of his palm. Alex let himself touch and hold as he trembled- emotion welling, quivering under his skin like it would spill in tears, would spill in kisses, would spill in the sound of Michael’s name on his sighs. He simply held Michael’s hand, tucking a thumb over the knob of bone in his wrist and held his gaze, unflinching and unafraid.

“You have about five seconds,” Hunter’s voice interrupted, forcing the world into the quiet of the moment. Alex didn’t want to let go, but the scuff of boots on the ground caught his attention. Hunter was about three feet away, rifle slung over his back as he leaned to grab a battered red bucket off the ground and ambled over to them. Alex was confused until Michael choked slightly and then turned, grabbing the bucket Hunter held out casually and dry heaved. Hunter nodded, rolling his eyes. “That’s it, man. Better out than in.”

“Hunter?”

Hunter glanced over, giving him a quick smile as he held the bucket through another wave of sick from Michael. “Hey Squirt. Almost didn’t need my help, huh?” He sniffed, glancing over at Michael, face going scandalized at the next rough round of dry heaving before he rolled his eyes and looked back at Alex. “So, this is him?”

Alex pushed with his left heel, straightening up and shifting to lean back against the driver’s side wheel as he sighed. “Yeah.”

Hunter set the bucket down, pushing to his feet and reaching over to shove at Alex’s head. “You can do better.”

Alex rolled his eyes but stopped and turned his head, staring towards the mouth of the Salvage Yard when Hunter went still. His brother was that sort of casual alert that had him reaching back to pull the nose of the rifle slowly forward, ducking deftly out of the strap to wrap light and loose around his arm before tucking the butt against his shoulder. He was easy weight and ready for a fight. “What?”

“Someone’s coming.”

“Fantastic.” Michael tried to get up, bracing on the bucket as he swallowed sickly. He got halfway up before his knees wobbled and dumped him to the side. He managed a dark disappointed look before he exhaled and went flat on his back.

Alex was reaching for the side view mirror, grabbing it and bracing to pull himself up when Hunter relaxed and started smiling, laugh light in the morning air. “Son of a bitch.” 

Alex got his foot under him, thigh burning as he stood, wobbling a little as he found his center of gravity, arch of his foot aching before he hopped and leaned heavily against the side of the Ford. There was a huge brown van bumping and swaying down the drive, dust billowing behind it and Alex just stared at the sight. It was a large swaying humpbacked monstrosity with a pale patch near the back, a bubbled black window peeking out of the mural airbrushed into the side. It heaved itself up and over the lip of the salvage yard, the signage swaying in the brunt of air the thing had been pushing in front of it as it shuddered to a stop. The engine revved once, a muffled yell inside before it cut off and the side door threw open, dumping a person out into the dirt like a cat spitting a dead frog on a doorstep. The dust started to settle and Kyle Valenti came strolling around the back of the Ford, wrists and elbows flinging in that singular way he had of moving, smile going undeniably bright at the sight of Alex. “Hey.”

“Great. _This_ guy.” Michael tossed both hands up at the sky and let them fall back as he closed his eyes and relaxed. “Day just keeps getting better.”

Alex couldn’t spare the weight to kick admonishingly at Michael, so he settled for rolling his eyes and shaking his head down at him. Kyle took a half step closer, mouth open, but they all startled at the happy sound of a man whooping and turned. A blond man hopped out of the van and jogged across the space, catching Hunter around the waist and hauling him up in a joyful hug. 

“Put me down you dumb fuck.” Hunter put both hands square on the man’s face, shoving his head to the side around a small smile.

“No. Hello my favorite shithead!” The man laughed and Alex realized he and Kyle had matching looks of utter confusion on their faces. 

“Uh, Levi?” Kyle wet his lips and gestured to where the blond was standing with Hunter half off the ground. “What the fuck? Also,” Kyle clapped his hands together and pointed at the pair with both index fingers. “Hunter. Hi? What. The. _Actual_. Fuck?” He smiled sweetly.

From the ground Michael waved loose fingers at Kyle. “What he said.”

**

Kyle was listening for all of three seconds before he noticed the way the Airstream was riddled with holes. The metal hull of the RV was pock-marked and pitted. Bullet holes, he realized as he stared. There was a smooth line of _bullet holes_ that seemed to perforate the side. He swallowed and swung around, back to where Alex was holding on to the side of a strange military gray Ford. The ground under him was muddy, red clay that stuck to the edge of his shoe. The click to clinical was instant- he could feel it settle like a wave through him, packing everything away except the steps of triage he’d had drilled into him for the last part of his career. Evaluate the situation. How much damage? How many people involved? Who needed immediate attention? The Salvage Yard was a jumble of voices as Hunter and Levi talked to each other, the rest of the passengers hopping from the Econoline into the dirt, Arizona hanging lightly from the driver’s side door and staring at the scene with growing horror.

It was a warzone. Alex was covered in blood, his shirt sticking to his chest and the back smearing against his skin. He had blood on his face, a line of drying from the edge of his lips and back over his jaw, congealing in his hair. The ground was a puddle of where he’d bled out, but he was upright.

Kyle’s eyes tracked to where Michael was on his back, sickly looking and pale, eyes red rimmed and closed as he took a long slow breath. He didn’t seem to have the normal energy that radiated off of him, just wiped out in the dirt. He had the pattern of arterial spray flaking on his skin, hands stained and sticky with blood. Kyle was moving even as he took careful catalogue, the darkest spot on Alex’s shirt just an inch to the left of his breast bone.

“Alex?” He held his hands up and crossed the last half foot as Alex nodded, eyes flicking between him and where Michael was on the ground. “How bad?” Kyle reached, touching the soft space just under Alex’s jaw with a firm two fingers, eyes still tracking over the extent of the damage as he counted, humming under his breath to keep time. “How bad, Alex?” 

“Bad.” Alex was never the one to shy from the truth, not when it mattered. Kyle let him keep quietly scanning the area, he didn’t need his attention just yet as he nodded in time with the beat in his head. “Is that Justin Timberlake?”

“Can’t Stop the Feeling is conveniently a perfect 110 beat per minute tempo,” Kyle didn’t let the comment derail him, singing under his breath and nodding once. “Which is also your current heart rate. Seemed fitting.” He wet his lips and brought his other hand up, cupping Alex’s jaw and turning him to look at him, checking pupils and watching for the blow out of shock. “That’s a lot of blood, Alex.”

“That’s what happens when you’re shot.” Alex submitted to the exam, holding Kyle’s gaze and blinking slowly. 

Kyle nodded, filing the information away as he started the light touch testing as he moved down Alex’s neck and across his chest, pausing with a small startled noise at the bullet hole in his shirt before continuing. He traced over one arm and then the next, hunkering to smooth over Alex’s left thigh before moving to the right. “Anything feel broken?”

“Not anymore. I’m fine.” Alex moved, touching his fingers to Kyle’s elbow and ducked his gaze to hold. “Kyle. I’m _fine_.”

“You’re not fine. You were shot. What the hell?” He shook his head, glaring around how his helplessness was trying to claw past his medical training. “This is so far off book, Alex. I have no idea what sort of soft tissue trauma might be lingering. You could have bone fragments-”

“Kyle.” Alex curled his fingers over Kyle’s wrist and wet his lips, careful of his next words. “I really need my crutches.” He nodded once, glancing at where one had skipped through the dust outside the Airstream. It had been flung like Alex had been spun, twirled around by the force of the bullet. “Can you do that for me?”

Kyle pushed back to his feet and tossed Alex a small amused smile. “Yeah.” He paused, jaw working as he considered his next words. “You know I’m the doctor here, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m the combat vet.” Alex tipped his head and gave Kyle that soft smile they’d started trading again. The smile of friendship and understanding. “This is more my field right now than yours.”

“I don’t like this, Alex.”

“It’s not my favorite either, Kyle.”

“Not to break up your _moment_ ,” Michael muttered, keeping his eyes closed. “But can someone please get me some acetone?”

“I don’t really just keep that kind of thing-” Kyle started, moving away from where Alex was leaning against the car and starting toward the crutch. 

“It’s in the Airstream, third drawer to the left by the sink. Should be a three pack still unopened.” Alex interrupted, shrugging when Kyle tossed him a look and Michael opened his eyes, gazing at him in something just a sidestep to the left of wonder. Alex rolled his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face, nose wrinkling in mild disgust at the pull and thick feel of how filthy he was. “Just get it, okay?”

 

**

The sky was unimaginably clear, a blue that pulled his gaze in and out of focus as the world seemed to simply move around him. The weakness trembled under his skin, like he’d been pricked and was seeping into the dirt. Michael Guerin hadn’t felt so entirely wiped by the use of his gifts since he was a kid and had moved the furniture around the group home. He’d been exhausted by his rage, the door barricaded as he was left a limp puddle of limbs on the hardwood near the wreck of bunk beds. Now, it was so similar, this feeling of being completely and devastatingly wrung out. He lay on his back, trembling under the weight of Alex’s blood on his hands, the weight of Alex’s life balanced against his own. He lay and watched the sky, the unending cloudless sky as it rolled from the faint gray blue of dawn, air warm around the edges as it strolled easy into the endless deep blue of the day.

He _knew_ where Alex was. He could close his eyes and _feel_ him under his skin, feel the beat of his heart like they shared a tempo. It was so soothing, not having to wonder anymore, just the knowledge that Alex was alive and nearby. 

A small blond girl ducked her head into his line of vision and he stared. She had a smooth moon shaped face with a small divot in her chin, dainty rosebud mouth, straight nose, and wide brown eyes. She stared at him, bent at the waist and hair falling in short wavy curtains as she tucked her hands into the pockets of her shorts. He’d been distracted. He’d been so distracted by Alex and the ripples of him around his lungs that he’d missed this, missed them. He took a long shaking breath, wetting his lips as he raised his eyebrows in question.

She smiled, a small tip at the corner of her mouth that pulled a tiny off center dimple. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

She rolled her gum across her mouth, tucking it visibly between her teeth and cheek before she reached to touch his forehead. “I’m Cerin.”

“Michael.”

The world shifted, going soft and warm, long hazy light pulling like taffy as her smile went electric bright and surprised. _You’re like us._

Michael heard the half sob caught in his chest as his eyes burned, tear welling as his jaw worked around impossible words. “Yeah.”

She nodded, blowing a bright pink bubble and tucking it to crackle loudly against her teeth. “Cool.”

**

For once, Liz was the last to arrive. She’d been forced to park behind a hulking brown van and smaller sleek gray Ford that were blocking the entrance to the Salvage yard. She kneed open the door to the rental Toyota as she reached to scoop the pile of clothes and blankets from where she’d hurriedly thrown them in the front seat. She was pulling the extra bits, arms of sweaters and trailing ends of a blanket, out to tuck them around each other making a ball she could tuck under her chin when another car pulled up behind her. It honked once with a cheery little beep. The small red hatchback was at least ten years old, rusting out around the wheel wells with a Moon Pies Pizza light posted just behind the expensive looking luggage rack on the roof. She knew this car. She’d thought it looked held together by bumper stickers when she was caught behind it in traffic. It had a tendency to simply park with hazards in random spaces or the middle of the road.

“Heya,” a young kid poked his head out the window, longish dark hair caught back in a frizzy ponytail and a sad mustache darkening his top lip under the neon pink visor with the logo- a pizza ringing around saturn with comic sans font- across the brim. “I have fifteen pies for an Isobel Evans? That you, fam?”

Liz shook her head. “No, hang on. I’ll get her.”

“I can’t just give them to you?” The kid’s voice hedged into plaintive and Liz widened her eyes at him, shaking the pile of clothes and blankets she was currently buried under in his general direction. She may have lost a random sock to the dirt, but it was worth it at the way the young boy looked appropriately cowed and just rolled his window back up. “Right. My bad.”

The day was fully established, the sun rising high in the sky and starting to burn the chill out of the air, but the New Mexico winter kept it’s colder claws low in the dirt, each soft breeze shivering slightly. Liz eeled through the cars, pausing to raise both eyebrows at the lurid airbrushed mural on the side of a familiar van. She’d seen it before, but couldn’t quite place it. The yard itself was a mess. 

“It looks like a warzone,” Maria had warned her over the phone. “But we need clothes. Just bring whatever.”

“Okay,” Liz had paused, parked and listening to the sound of her friend’s breath over the line. “I saw the Pony-”

“It’s not important right now, Liz,” Maria had interrupted, voice light and specific, talking around something difficult. “It’s... not right now, okay?”

Liz nodded. “I’m coming.”

“Hurry, please? I really need you.”

“Fast as I can.”

“It’ll be enough.” There was a pause and she could hear the way Maria was taking a long slow breath. “I love you.”

Liz felt the prickle in her eyes, heat and pressure closing her throat. “I love you.”

“Bring some booze.” Maria laughed and Liz let her change the mood of the conversation, coughing a little giggle to match. 

“The good stuff?”

“Nah, I don’t know half of these people.” Maria sniffed and Liz could picture the way she was smiling and thumbing at her eyes at the same time, pulling herself together with a small shake of her hair and squaring her shoulders. “Bring the weed too.”

“How mu-”

“All of it. All of the weed.” Maria was smiling now and Liz let herself turn the car on, the engine huffing to life as the radio started playing softly until the bluetooth connected. There was a moment when the speakers picked up a soft indignant shout that sounded like Isobel before the line went dead. 

The warning of warzone hadn’t quite been enough. 

The Airstream was peppered with bullet holes and a couple of dark stains on the ground were covered loosely with some upturned dirt. Liz felt the way the sight was stopping her in her tracks, eyes sliding from the left to the right, watching the line of footprints in the dirt and the way she could nearly see the shape of a body in the dust. She swallowed, packing everything away in a neat little lump she could tuck under her lungs. She closed her eyes and took a breath before letting herself continue forward, following the sound of murmured voices and the crackle of a fire. 

Michael was lounging perched on a blue cobalt tool box, feet kicked out on the arm of a metal chair that Alex was sitting in. Michael was in his favorite cream colored waffle weave with the tear at the neckline and battered boots and faded soft looking jeans. Alex was wearing a familiar denim snap front shirt, black jacket with fleece collar, and dark jeans that were knotted just under his knee on the right leg. They were sitting just under the lip of the automotive bay, the neon signs in the back turned off and the large clock an hour slow. 

Isobel was sitting to their right, leaned back on her elbows and watching everyone with an arched eyebrow. She was dressed down more than Liz had seen in a long time, loose jeans with stains over the knees and thighs and an over large white t-shirt with a collar stretched out from over wear hanging off one delicate shoulder. She had a big floral comforter wrapped around her, hair dripping wet spots where it was hanging loose. Maria was a few paces further around the circle, leaning back against a pile of tires with her feet tucked out towards the firepit, legs covered in a gray fuzzy blanket. She was wearing a gigantic plaid men's shirt with a belt wrapped twice around her waist and high striped socks poked out the bottom. She’d caught her hair up in the broad cloth headband Rosa kept in her purse. Rosa was holding on to the edge of a large truck sized tire, bouncing one heel off the rubber as she listened to something Maria was saying. She had a red and black flannel on over an old Smashing Pumpkins shirt, tight jeans ripped at the knees, and her heavy black boots.

There was a gangly black teen with a bright smile in a plain white t-shirt who had his arm draped over a petite little blond girl in an oversized forest green hoodie. Beside them was a good looking man with sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes who was nursing a brown longneck. He was dressed sensibly in a tan carhartt jacket, green and blue flannel, jeans, and tan work boots. He sat in a battered metal lawn chair, the partner to the one that Alex was in opposite him across the fire.

“There’s a kid with enough pizza for a small army at the entrance,” she called, noting the way ten heads turned to look at her. 

Kyle was sitting next to the group of new faces and Liz nearly choked when Hunter Manes glanced over, giving her a crooked smile and two fingered wave before turning back to where he and Kyle were talking. She made it around the circle, narrowing her eyes at the slender dark haired woman in a black band t-shirt and turquoise jewellery when the door to the Airstream clattered open. Mimi DeLuca smiled brightly at her, eyes clear and Liz nearly dropped everything in her arms at the sight. 

“Did someone say there was pizza?” Mimi asked, smiling brightly as she toweled at her wet curls. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in a decade.”

“I got it.” Kyle pushed to his feet, walking past Liz and reaching to touch her wrist lightly, nodding once before sauntering past, digging his wallet out of his back pocket.

“I’ll help,” the dark haired woman in the band shirt said. At the sound of her voice everything clicked: Arizona.

“ _That’s_ the fucking van,” Liz muttered, brain slatting the bit of information into place as the girl from Texas trailed after Kyle. “I have clothes?”

Maria clapped, steadying herself on Rosa’s knee as she stood and crossed. She touched light fingers to Isobel’s as she walked around the fire, a soft little squeeze that had Liz’s eyebrows rocketing up. The flannel shirt hung to her knees, barely held tight with a belt looped twice around her waist. She hugged Liz around the lump of fabric before taking half, carefully picking through to keep from spilling anything. “Guerin needs to do laundry,” she said, as if that explained anything.

“That doesn’t exactly explain why everyone is wearing his clothes.”

“I think we’re going to have to burn what we were wearing,” Isobel said and Liz wasn’t entirely sure if it was a commentary on the fashion or a note on destroying evidence. “Blood is a bitch to get out.”

“Right.” She started handing out the blankets, the fire making a small dent in the winter chill. “Do I want to know why? Or do I get to infer from the evidence presented?”

There was a long pause as everyone seemed to look at everyone else, the fire crackling loudly as one of the logs snapped and settled with a shower of sparks. She found herself turning to Alex who was staring into the flames, brows drawn together in a black line, face inscrutable. “Remember how I said my father had been running a military operation involving the alien crash in 47?”

Liz nodded slowly as Mimi moved to sit next to Maria, pulling a plush sea green sweater from the pile in her daughter’s lap and twisting into it. “You said he was in Africa.”

“You _believed_ that? Squirt.” Hunter called across the fire, shaking his head. His hair had grown out to chin length and curled a little as he spoke. She noted a new scar on his brow that cut into his hairline slightly and sliced through his eyebrow. He reached up, catching his hair back half up and twisting a hair tie into it. “Come on,” he sounded disappointed as he tipped a Bud Light and sipped. 

“I thought he valued his career and reputation more-”

“You underestimated the stakes. That’s unlike you.”

“I was distracted. You may have been operating with the full battery of information, but I’ve been finding it on my own.”

“Be glad of that, little bro.”

“It’s hard to be glad of something that’s placed me in the position to have to plan without the benefit of full knowledge.”

“You rely too much on _planning_.”

“ _You_ rely too much on instinct.”

“I did just fine.” Hunter sucked his teeth, taking another swig. “Saved your ass.”

“Wouldn’t have had to if you’d just let-”

“He would have killed you if we had tipped the hand sooner.”

“Harlan?”

“Yes, Harlan.” Hunter blew out a breath. “He’s been in charge since he passed through the Academy. He’s always bee-”

“Do _not_ talk to me about the _threat_ in our family.” Alex and Hunter locked gazes across the fire, silent and stubborn before Hunter nodded once and leaned back, conceding the floor. Alex blew out a long breath, ducking his head for a moment, collecting himself back to steely calm and lifted his chin. “It’s bigger than I ever imagined. I had been given the impression that my father was the captain of a ship going under, funded by personal debt and driven by personal obsession.” He sniffed and glanced over and up where michael was watching him, eyes careful in the scrap of shade thrown by the bay roof. “I was wrong. That mistake almost cost us more than-”

“People have underestimated your father his entire life. He was going to prove everyone wrong. It was going to be so much worse.” Mimi spoke up finally, wetting her lips and tucking her hair back as she gazed across the fire at him. “Jimmy and I had to do something and it nearly destroyed both of us.” She smiled, a small quick flicker at the corners of her mouth. “Turns out, it did destroy us both.” She smiled and looked over at the strangers in the circle. “It was worth it.”

“We could never repay,” the blond man said after a small pause. 

Liz raised her hand, waiting until everyone was looking at her. Behind her Kyle was carrying a pile of pizza boxes, followed by Arizona. “Hi. Everyone paying attention? Good.” She nodded, pointing at Kyle and gesturing for him to start handing out the pizzas. “For those of us who have no idea what the _fuck_ is going on? I would like one person. _One_ person to please explain clearly. Thank you.” She reached over and grabbed the pizza box from the top of the pile Arizona was holding and crossed the circle to clamber next to where Rosa was sitting.

“Should I ge-”

“Mention that whiteboard again and I will toss you across the yard,” Michael muttered.

“From what I can tell my brother Harlan took over Project Shepherd,” Alex started, talking over the glares Kyle and Michael traded without missing a beat, nonplussed by the bickering. “It’s something more than I had ever imagined. They’d created an entire compound under the dairy farms that the airforce had been purchasing for the last ten years. I’m not entirely sure of how it got to that point.” He gestured across the fire and Hunter nodded around the sip he’d been taking, leaning to set the beer aside.

“Project Shepherd was created to use the data collected from the 47 crash site to prepare for the imminent Alien invasion. Experiments were started in 1950 after the initial holding cells proved to be insufficient and the appropriations committee was given access to shut down and reallocate Caulfield Prison. The survivors of the crash were taken there during the experimentation process.” He nodded across the fire to where Mimi DeLuca had curled her legs to sit cross legged with her hands cradled in her lap.

“We were recruited right out of High School. Jesse had wanted to get out of New Mexico, but one day it all... changed. He became his father’s son. Jimmy and I didn’t know what to do, but when we were approached the legacy seemed to be all encompassing. We were taught to be terrified and my family- our family-” she paused to take Maria’s hand and squeeze, holding it between her fingers. “We were the means to communicate. Jesse began coordinating the experimentation efforts to catalogue and observe, noting the different types of powers that were being displayed. He was the first to notice the correlation between killing and power increase. The government began playing a larger role in the 80’s and the experiments took a different turn.” She glanced across the fire to where the strangers were sitting.

“I am Levi,” the blond man said after a pause. “This is Davi and Cerin. This woman, she helped us,” he continued, tilting his head at Liz before gesturing to the black boy and blond girl. “They were born-” he paused, searching before glancing at the girl and boy. “In captivity. Yes, thank you.”

“No worries,” the boy replied, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head to listen.

“I was in the crash, but I was many years younger then.” Levi stroked a thumb along the back of his knuckles. “The olders would protect us when they could.” There was a quiet to the way the man spoke and Liz heard the horror in the quiet between careful breaths. “The first to be born changed it all. We had to... we had to leave?”

“Escape.”

“Yes, _escape_.” He sniffed and Liz could see the way his jaw was working, tongue against the back of his teeth. “First I am thinking we are dying.” He nods a few times before looking across the space to Mimi and then over to where Hunter had his head down, hair a careful tent around his face. “We were playing dead to escape. Not enough of us. Not enough of us. We had been hoping to escape the rest, but then Valenti stopped coming. We hid until Hunter is finding us.”

“They’d been hiding them on the reservation. Operates on its own tribal law outside the reach of the Federal government,” Hunter supplied, not looking up.

“She and Jim Valenti worked with my manager and the council to create a safe space on the Mescalero reservation for them. Way before my time,” Arizona interjected. “There was a woman who must have escaped the 47 crash and made it all the way to the rez on foot. She was why we were prepared.” She shrugged.

“Also why you’re here?” Liz asked.

Arizona shrugged. “Basically. Although, you know,” she poked Kyle in the thigh with a quick foot, grinning at him when he glanced up quickly around the bite of pizza. “I needed convincing.” 

“There had been an ongoing search for any survivors of the crash that may have escaped the initial clean up efforts,” Hunter continued. “It kept the base of research here instead of moving to a more central federal location. Somewhere in the late 90’s the first bodies started showing up with the handprint. Some drifter half buried in the desert. A homeless guy here and an indigent there. It started adding up to an Alien threat. The location effort redoubled and Dad’s paranoia kicked into overdrive. He brought Harlan into the know very early. I learned about it not long after I turned 16, but Dad already had his protege, so Jim took me under his wing. When he went rogue, I was just graduating SERE training. I was able to put the pieces together a year or two later.” Hunter wet his lips, tapping his fingers against the bottle and thinking a moment. “I started helping smuggle everyone out after Mimi was decommissioned.”

“That’s a polite way of saying it,” Mimi remarked, shaking her head slightly. “After Rosa died I knew that it was an alien killer. The handprint was there and if they were getting close it was more important to protect my girl than myself. I gave Maria the necklace to be sure she was safe. I had my memories scrambled to decommission out of the operation. It was the only way to keep her from discovering the truth and to be sure they didn’t try to come for us both.”

“You did it on purpose?” Maria’s voice was quiet, loose in her throat as she stared down at where her mother’s hand was in her own.

“Yes.” Mimi didn’t look away. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“The problem is after Jim died-”

“He was murdered,” Kyle interrupted and Hunter glanced over at him sharply, ducking his head before lifting his chin again. 

“After Jim was _murdered_ , there was a power vacuum and Harlan was able to simply edge our father out and take over the operation. Part of what you saw was true- Dad was lost, a man on the outskirts of an operation he was no longer a part of, funding his scraps and hopes with his own money. The real power was elsewhere.”

“The bomb.”

Hunter nodded. “You know how much he loves his elegant solutions.”

“There’s a bomb?” Isobel’s voice was cutting and shrill. “There’s a _fucking_ bomb?”

“Harlan went to the academy to study mechanical engineering and nuclear physics.” Alex wet his lips. “He’s always been... gifted.”

“Fucking sociopathic,” Hunter agreed.

“Can we go back to the _bomb_?” Isobel’s voice cracked. “What does it _do_? Why are we just finding out about this now?”

“I was in the same place you were Isobel,” Alex reminded her, wetting his lips and looking directly at her. “I was a little busy.”

She sat back, frowning spectacularly. “Point.” Maria reached over, tucking their hands together for a breath and Liz had to tear her eyes away when Hunter started speaking again.

“Harlan had a whole new playground once he found the information on the technology that had been recovered from the crash site. He was obsessed with the idea of molecular regeneration chains in a nonstandard reaction during a nuclear test. The shrapnel could be concurrent and unending if the structure was functioning correctly. He was focused on how because of the minute differences in biology he could create a smart bomb that could simply eradicate the entirety of the threat without collateral damage. It could start with wiping out the alien threat, but imagine the ability to destroy anyone with the biological marker for blue eyes. Elegant endgames, he called them.”

A heavy silence settled into the circle, everyone processing the full scope of what was being laid out for them. Liz was still concerned about the bullet holes and the blood on the ground, but in comparison to full genocide, it seemed slightly less pressing. She set the pizza box to the side, thumbing at her mouth as her appetite fled. Rosa shifted, turning to rest her temple on Liz’s shoulder, a soft comfort in the face of the possible destruction. Liz tangled their fingers and sat in silence. The hubcaps clattered their sad rattle and the metal sides of the Automotive bay groaned in a chilly bluster of wind that slipped around the edges of the broken down cars and husks of busses and trucks.

“He could kill all of us with our own technology,” Michael said to the fire, eyes never leaving the flames.

“Yes. Exactly.” 

Michael wet his lips and took a sip of his beer, smile going sarcastic and sharp before nodding once and turning to look at Hunter. “It’s smart. I’ll give him that. How much of the original craft has been recover-”

“I have the last piece.” The silence that settled over the Salvage Yard was interrupted only by the scuff of a closing pizza box and the crackle of the fire. Alex had spoken clearly, voice carrying easily over the group. Liz covered her mouth, watching the way Michael’s face went startled, hurt, and then carefully blank. Alex didn’t look up from where he was knotting his fingers together, bent forward slightly with his forearms braced over his knees, left foot steady in the dirt as his right knee flexed. He closed his eyes, inhaling slowly. The wind bustled through the group, tousling his cowlicks where they’d dried loose and soft looking. He exhaled a slow breath and nodded once, bracing himself as he squared his shoulders and sat up. “The one you’re looking for? I have it, Guerin.”

Michael started laughing, head tipped to the side and Liz had a moment where she couldn’t tell if it was laughter or cracking tears before he just choked and sniffed. “Of course you do.”

Alex turned, eyes still down as he tilted his head to the side, jaw working before he finally just steeled himself and caught Michael’s gaze. “I didn’t want you to leave.”

“Liar.”

“You know I’m not.” Alex just kept his face open and careful. It felt intimate, like she shouldn’t be watching, but she couldn’t look away. 

“No.” Michael looked lost for a second, hand touching at his collarbone before he just shoved up to his feet. “Alex? How long?” He looked betrayed, mouth dropped open slightly as his tongue tucked behind his teeth. 

“Massive government conspiracy.” 

“Might as well be you.” Michael sighed, closing his eyes before his temper exploded outward and he threw the empty beer bottle to shatter against the far wall and walked away from the group. “ _Right?_ Fuck.” The metal wall of the automotive bay groaned as he passed, the airstream rocking slightly, the perforated side buckling as the five windows still intact burst in a violent shower of glass. 

Alex simply turned his head back and stared at his hands, jaw working. “We have-”

“If you don’t get up and follow him right now, I will kick your ass myself. I don’t care if you’re missing a leg.” Kyle said it simply, voice low and intent as it carried across the fire. 

“You don’t under-”

“Conversation. Not a fucking war, Manes. Get up or I take back every single time I called you brave.”

Alex glared at him, met with a simple implacable gaze and the stubborn Valenti jaw. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it _is_.” Kyle set aside his pizza box and strode around the fire to grab Alex’s crutch and hold it out to him. “Don’t make yourself look stupid. You’re not stupid.” He gave Alex a small encouraging smile. “Just scared.”

The group watched the stand off, watched the way Alex was visibly calculating his odds, jaw working and muscle twitching as he ground his teeth. He finally reached out, snagging the crutch and took the hand Kyle offered, pulling to his feet and hopping a little to settle his weight as Kyle handed him the second crutch. “Do I-”

“Just _talk_ to him, Alex.”

“I hate you, _Magoo_.”

Kyle smiled at him, bright and sudden. “I love you, too.”

Alex nodded once, huffing a soft laugh and turned, tapping after Michael with a slow swing, careful of where the rubber tips of the crutches landed and around the corner of the building and out of sight. The fire snapped a few times, cheery in the following silence. Isobel was watching where the two had disappeared, worried and chewing at her bottom lip. 

“Um,” Arizona said, swallowing and pointing after Alex around a half eaten slice of pizza. “What just happened?”

“Hopefully a conversation,” Kyle answered, before spinning to clap his hands together and look at the group. “Where were we?”

“Alex has the last piece of the alien console that Michael’s been secretly reassembling in the bunker while we were all chasing our tails.” Liz opened her eyes and smiled at them all. “You know that whole Michael is going to do whatever it is Michael does? Apparently, it was try rebuilding the ship.”

“I was hoping someone would come and take me home,” Isobel breathed like she’d just realized something. “Oh my God. He did it.”

“You have a ship?” Levi’s voice was startling, gruff and urgent. He held a hand out at where both Davi and Cerin had snapped to attention at his side. 

“No... more like the,” she paused, pantomiming like she was typing before rolling her eyes at herself. “It’s not whole. Not yet, but probably very soon.” Liz watched the man. “Michael thinks it might talk to Max’s pod.” She glanced to where Isobel was starting to relax. “That maybe it will help us bring him back.”

“I want to see this console.” Levi stated, firm as he pushed to his feet. “Take me to it.” 

“You’ll have to forgive us for not automatically trusting a new Alien,” Isobel drawled, face going hard. 

“Why?” Levi looked confused.

Isobel lounged back, elegant in Michael’s clothes. “The last alien we met tried to murder us all and used me as a fucking finger puppet.” She pursed her mouth. “He was a psychopathic murderer and the last time we dealt with the Manes’ family his brother shot Maria’s mother and locked us in a cell.”

“We have all been in cells.”

“Still don’t trust you.” She shrugged. “It’s a very nice story, but I honestly have no reaso- what is he doing?”

The young boy had stood, brushing off the back of his pants and started walking away as Isobel spoke. He paused at the outside of the Airstream, eyes glancing along the hull before holding up his hands and cupping them over the closest bullet hole. The air went tense, pulled tight like the pressure before a storm, the weight of intent and purpose as the boy’s hands started to glow. One of the lights in the bay behind them started to flicker as the boy smoothed his hands over the metal of the RV. The bullet holes smoothed away like the metal was wet clay, smoothed and reshaped with an easy touch.

“Giving you a reason to trust us,” Davi said, teeth clenched as he worked, a small shake running down his arms.

“He’s can put anything back together,” Cerin said, voice soft like a silver bell as she watched him work, eyes warm. “I get things. Levi-”

“What do you mean, you get things?” Liz heard herself ask, curiosity trumping the need to be wary. She could feel the way both Isobel and Rosa had thrown her a carefully guarded look.

The small blond tucked her hair behind her ears with both hands, thinking for a moment. She looked over at Liz. “You have seen the console?” 

“I migh-” she felt the way the memory floated to the surface, the way the console had shimmered once when Michael had run his fingers over it on the table in the science bunker. She could almost smell the memory, clear and vibrant at the front of her head. 

“Yes.” The girl closed her eyes and held her hands out. 

“It’s too much.”

“I can do it, Levi.” She bit her lip and stood, moving to an empty space with a stumbling walk like she was starting to carry something heavy. She tripped and Liz heard the soft noise of strain before there was an audible pop, her ears snapping and throbbing once. Cerin wobbled, smile going beatific as the console simply existed in the space between one breath and the next. It didn’t suddenly appear, just slipped into reality like someone sliding back a curtain. Cerin wobbled, waving her hands like a proud and overtired magician. “I told you.”

Everyone froze, staring at the golden lacelike structure. It seemed so fragile, like spun sugar sitting in the New Mexico dust. Levi pushed to his feet, stumbling forward and touched a light finger to the surface. It lit up, ripples of golden and purple shimmering through the whole of the material, pulling symbols and characters to the surface. There was a sound of joy, it was the only way to describe it as he fell to his knees, both hands smoothing over the console, stroking it like it was alive. “I do not have the words to explain.”

“You can use me,” Hunter said, shrugging. Levi glanced over at him, nodding once. “Not too long, though. You know I hate that shit. Like a bad fucking trip or some shit.”

“What is happening?” Rosa whispered, voice strained with fear.

“He’s a skinwalker.” Hunter stood and tensed like he was waiting to be hit.

“A what?” Rosa’s voice pitched high and Liz could feel the way she was starting to try and get between everyone and where Liz was sitting. She grabbed for her sister, taking her hand in both of hers, offering what little comfort she could.

Hunter gave her a small smirk, eyes glittering as he blew out a breath and held out a hand to where Levi had reached for him. He went stiff, struck by something shocking and electric. Levi started to shift, just hazing like a heat vision around the edges until Hunter rolled quietly to the ground, head caught against his own palm. Two Hunters, one one the ground, laid there carefully by another in a carhartt jacket, green and blue plaid, loose comfortable jeans, and tan work boots. “It’s a little jarring at first,” the new Hunter said, wetting his lips and giving them Levi’s smile from the sharp planes of his face. “But it’s easier if I am one of you. The language is simpler.”

“What. The. Fuck.” Kyle was staring, eyes wide. “Why did I even go to fucking Med School? Fuck. Why bother? Sparkly alien hands and shape shifters, are you fucking serious right now?”

“We can do that?” Isobel breathed, staring at Levi with wide eyes.

“Only some. Each family carries its own gifts, but it is not exact.” He moved to run his fingers through his hair, forgetting momentarily that it was longer. “I can take more time to try and explain later, but now I have not done this in a long time. I am out of practice so I do not have long.” He stroked a hand over the console again. “This accesses what you would call the life support system. It is designed to be indestructible, knitting back together if broken so that it can monitor the lives in its charge. In order to travel the deep black you have to be in stasis. The years would drive you mad. Many of us died not even knowing we had arrived, their pods cracked and broken. Those of us that survived had no concept of time, just that one day we were woken and in pain.” He swallowed, keeping his voice fast and light even as he started to shake with strain. 

“The humans had figured out how to put us in and out of the stasis,” he continued. “Years would pass, some I loved dying while I was not aware. We were kept in the cells when awake and then longing for the dark and nothing of stasis. Some had a malfunctioning pod, the stasis kept but they were awake. Alone for the years between-” He cut off, blowing out a breath. “This can tell me where the rest of the pods are. Can tell us how many survive still. Can tell-”

“Max.” Liz heard herself breathe his name like hope, loud enough to break into Levi’s story. “Can you bring Max back?”

“We can bring him back, but we cannot heal him. That is only certain families and the gift is weak for my people.” He paused, turning to Isobel for what felt like the first time, fully looking at her and holding her gaze. “But not for yours.”

**

Sander’s Salvage Yard sat on approximately 20 acres of open flat land that edged between the floodplain around the dry gulley and the foothills peppered with caves and abandoned mines. The first five acres were fenced with crushed cars stacked in haphazard rows. There was an old bus with the pert round headlights ripped from the front, the windows removed years ago leaving the seats to crack and dry in the New Mexico heat. It smelled like dust, grease, iron, and cold as Alex followed the soft groans of metal that trailed around Michael. The other man was prowling ahead, a headlight shattering here and there, a car groaning at an invisible push. The whole junkyard bowing around him and Alex understood. This is what Michael did, pushed invisibly at the world, pushed and pushed until it broke and crashed against him, helpless.

“You know I can’t keep up,” Alex finally called, voice gruff as he picked his way around where a car had slid down from the pile, half on it’s side and hood flopped open like a tired dog sleeping on tile. “Geurin.”

“Then stop following me,” Michael replied, pulling to a stop and glaring at the ground before visibly steeling himself and wheeling to stare at him. “What do you want, Alex?”

“ _You._ ” Alex felt the way he startled himself and nodded, lifting his eyes to hold Michael’s gaze. 

Michael stilled, watching him across the junk yard and it felt so familiar. Ten paces between them and it might have been miles. It was so familiar, a moment lived again and again over the last decade. “Alex.”

Alex wet his lips quickly. “Can’t we just... I don’t know. Talk?”

“You want to _talk_?” Michael scoffed, prowling forward, eyes ducking to look at him through his lashes. It was predatory, slinky and beautiful and Alex could feel the way his skin heated, helpless to this thing between them.

“No.” Alex shook his head, voice nearly a whisper as he curled his fingers tighter around the crutches, squeezing the molded plastic hard as he held his ground. “I don’t _want_ to talk. I want to _touch_ you.” He frowned, pushing forward, the words staccato as he shoved them past his teeth. “I don’t want to _talk_ , because I don’t know how to say what I need to say. I don’t know how to make the words come out so they don’t _hurt_. I need to talk. I need you to know me. I don’t know how to say that I love you without feeling like I’m gutted.” He could feel the way his eyes were burning and steeled his jaw against the quiver in his chin. “I don’t know how to do this, Guerin. I don’t-”

“You love me.” Michael was close, he was close enough that Alex could drop one of the crutches and reach out, curl his fingers around the back of his neck and they could crash together. They could pull the metal walls down around them and drown in this kiss. Alex could find solace in the warm feel of Michael’s breath and the taste of his moans. He _could_.

“Yes.” His chin trembled and he couldn’t look away; he _couldn’t_. Alex was staring as Michael’s eyes welled and his head tilted into a small shake, like he was trying to deny the truth Alex had let fall between them. “I can feel you. I can feel you under my skin and I know you love me.” He shifted, weight tight in his hip and he pushed the rubber end of his crutch harder into the dirt, pulling himself up to hold Michael’s gaze. “I refuse to be the boy who couldn’t protect you. I refuse to be the one to watch my father destroy the one thing I loved. I-I have to be _strong_ , but I came back broken and I can’t. It’s not just-”

“Alex.”

“And then every time I came home my family was there. They were here. In this space.” He gestured between them and tapped the crutch a few times as he forced himself to look up again. “He broke you,” he whispered and he could feel the moment the tear tracked over his cheek. He wanted to swipe it away, frustrated by the weight of the crutches, of the past. “He hurt you and I couldn’t stop him. Every time I touched you he was there and I had to find a way to protect you.” He tilted his head, trying to take a slow careful breath around the insistent ache. “I needed to make sure that the next time I let myself be _in love with you_ nothing would be able to take-”

“ _Alex_ ,” Michael was so close now, the space between them electric, charged and overfull. He felt exposed, torn open and waiting with his heart beating into the open air. He was shaking, a small fraught tremble that sank into his bones as he closed his eyes. Michael’s fingers felt rough, callused thick against the inside of his knuckles and over the bridge of his palm. His hands were broad, dry and warm. Alex squeezed the crutches, fingers flexing, caught between wanting this and willing Michael to understand. He could feel the way the breeze was blowing Michael’s curls around, flicking them casual across his forehead in the brush against his own skin. So close, they were so close and he could hear the sound of Michael’s breath, the ragged in and out. It felt like they were breathing in tandem, that their heartbeats were synched. He could feel Michael, under his skin, in his blood, like they’d simply slipped together finally. 

He felt him where he belonged, in his heart like they fit, like it had never been something that could break. Michael’s fingers trailed down his neck, light and careful as he pulled back enough to unbutton the first two buttons on the shirt Alex was wearing. “What-?”

“Shut up and let me show you,” Michael muttered, voice gruff and deep as he stared intently at the bit of skin exposed. He glanced up, eyes shockingly vulnerable, pleading and golden. Alex barely nodded, wetting his lips before his mouth dropped open at the feel of Michael’s hand pressing flat against his chest. “Let me...,” Michael’s voice was soft and warm like the mornings shared, the slightest caress of thumb at the dip between his collarbones, the feel of their foreheads pressed together, and then they plunged into chaos.

The world slipped away and it was a thundercloud, a roiling mess of anger and fear. It boiled up, hot and shocking. It was the smell of something almost like gasoline and the stained thin carpet as a woman with lank mouse brown hair exhaled smoke and sank back into the sofa. The woman was thin with gaunt cheekbones and red rimmed eyes, sores around the corners of her lips as she smiled at him with a limp bleary gaze. 

“Hey little man,” she breathed, shifting against the tweed couch like she couldn’t get comfortable. 

This was safer, Alex knew this the way Michael had known it. This was safer than the frantic searching, the frantic near keen when they were out. They’d shake him with sharp fingers to his arm. They’d shake him and slam doors; they’d need as they raged- shattering glasses and bottles in their desperate search. They’d shake him and it never felt safe except for just like this. 

Michael had wondered if this was love, this melting loss of self. Was love endless hunger?

He’d had fifteen different beds after that, shuffled from one home to the next. He kept his clothes in a plastic bag and would stare mutely at the flat smiling faces as he climbed into the bunk bed, the pull out, the bottom bunk, the side by side twin mattress, and one one memorable occasion a sleeping bag on a cot in a room with fifteen other kids. 

“He doesn’t speak?” The woman had asked, hair a bottle blond and cut short and simple around her jaw. She had wire rimmed glasses, a neat blue cardigan over a paler blue shirt, long denim skirt hanging past her knees. “Is he mute?”

The caseworker was an overtired hispanic woman with black hair shot through with silver. She’d dug the file with his given name on it out and flipped through, scanning for as much information as she could gather in the ten minute interview. “They think there was trauma,” she managed, swallowing a sad sigh and offering Michael a smile where he sat. 

The blond woman touched the smooth gold cross at her neck and nodded. “Well, there’s nothing God’s love won’t heal.” She smiled, sweet and it didn’t touch her eyes. She’d given him a bag of potato chips in the station wagon as they drove away. He’d eaten in silence, watching out the window as the endless New Mexico desert moved past, fast near the edge of the highway and then an endless sprawl out near the horizon that seemed so permanent. She’d taken her shoes off just inside the front door and knelt under a picture of Jesus. She’d watched as her husband tried to burn the demons out of him. She’d watched with the patience of the unrelentingly penitent.

Michael had wondered if this was devotion as he choked back his screams. Was love something to be endured?

“No,” Alex heard himself answer. He heard himself say it and the world went quiet for a moment, the endless shocking spiral of motion- the roil of memory and thought and emotion and Michael stilling for him. 

It was a small memory of a moment when he’d been almost out of sight, the shock of him in Michael’s eyes knocking him breathless. He’d looked fierce, determined, sharp, and beautiful. And then he’d looked kind in the way he’d taken a breath, wetting his lips and watching Michael with a clear understanding from the corner of his eye, brow furrowed. 

“There’s this toolshed, out behind my house.” Michael had watched him with a focus that seemed impossible. He’d watched him and the way his shoulders stretched the hem of the sweater, the way the light caught on his rings, the chips on his black nail polish. He saw himself as Michael saw him in that moment. Michael thought he was fascinating, the kind of focus that came before the realization that this was something more. “It’s warm and I go there when things get bad. So.”

He felt Michael’s fingers stretch slightly against his skin and he found himself in-

“Like I’ve got all this chaos inside me all the time, and... all I want to do is get away from myself. But then I play, and my, uh... my entropy changes. Everything goes quiet.” Michael strummed the guitar and Alex felt the way the tones seemed to focus him, to focus his mind into just the harmonics of it all. He felt Michael exhale and still the chord. The quiet that followed was so loud, so full and it screamed at him- screamed at him until Michael managed a soft, “Thank you.”

Alex knew the next line by heart. He knew it and he mouthed the “You’re welcome,” in time with the memory, but he was looking at himself. He looked scared and anticipatory, inspired and vulnerable under the eyeliner and piercings. He looked so impossibly young, achingly hopeful and so close. Michael had stared and for the first time his mind had simply stopped and focused in on one thing. He focused on the way they were swaying close, drawn together and caught in the pull of each other. It was silent in his mind because Alex drowned out everything else.

Michael had wondered what this was, this peaceful aching pull to this beautiful boy. Alex startled at the answer: love looked like him.

It was the first kiss that had shocked out of Michael with the realization of want. It was the way they had laughed and Alex glowed beautiful and sun lit in Michael’s eyes, something to be savored and enjoyed with fervent touch and utter devotion. It was the way he’d surrendered to the heat and the want, the sparking effervescent curl of it under his skin, electric and buzzing through him as they’d kissed, pulling and gripping, desperate in the tool shed as Michael had only wanted one thing: Alex.

It was the way he’d come to in the shock of pain, white hot and his first thought was Alex. He wrapped his hand and stumbled pain sick and shaking to his truck. It still smelled like _Alex._

It was the line of Alex’s neck in the black suit he’d worn to the funeral, pale and bruised with exhaustion and a broken nose, arm caught up in a sling as he’d sat silent in the pews of the church. It was the way that Alex had met his eyes across the thick scent of the baking blacktop, the heat catching under the collar of their suits. It was the way he’d shaken his head just slightly when Michael had moved to go to him, to get close. It was the way Alex’s eyes had darted to where his father was speaking to a group of sadly smiling women in matching Ann Taylor dresses over slightly different shoes.

It was the sound of Alex’s breath when he’d finally answered Michael’s call. The crackle of it as he broke and cried, hanging up before they said a word.

It was Alex standing in front of the UFO Emporium with close cropped black hair and the way the whole world simply _stopped_ at the sight of him. It was the frantic kisses in a motel room, the way Michael didn’t sleep, but simply stared at him in the dark, tracing the edges of him with light delicate touch. It was the way he wanted Alex. It was twelve times in ten years. It was an echo of the way he needed him. An echo of the desperate yearning under the kisses in the spray of the shower head, the way Alex always looked down at him, startled at the feel when Michael just grabbed and pulled- uncaring and desperate.

Michael had been trying for so long. He’d been burning for so long. He’d been needing for so long. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about Alex’s father or the pain or the suffering he just-

“Stay,” Michael breathed, watching the way Alex’s shoulders went tense under his touch. 

“You could stay,” Michael managed, staring up at the stars in a tangle of blankets with his jeans pulled up around his hips where they’d fallen.

“Wait, wait wait,” he gritted around the way his heart felt like it was swollen, thick and hot in his chest at the feel of Alex moving in him in the dark. “Just let me-”

“Stay with me,” Michael finally said, desperate with Alex’s blood under his hands. 

It was a drunken scrawl as he’d sat achingly alone in his dark Airstream out on Foster Ranch, surrounded by drawings of a ship. Surrounded by the shape of escape, Michael had written one line on a piece of graph paper, one line in smeared black ink. 

“I don’t want the stars without you,” Alex breathed, voice low and close. “I didn’t understand it, not really.”

Michael pulled his hand back, curling his fingers into a fist and pressing his knuckles lightly before he dropped back and they dropped back into reality. Alex was standing in the cold, both hands wrapped around the handles on his crutches, one foot in the dirt. He was surrounded by the stacks of broken cars, crunched and mangled into stackable pieces. Alex Manes was back in his body and he was cold, tired, and unendingly maddeningly frustratingly in love with Michael Guerin. He was in love with the man who leaned back, blinking a few times and looking away before his gaze rolled back and they caught, helpless to the weight of it.

“I don’t need you to protect me, Alex.” Michael’s voice was low and gruff as his hair danced in the breeze. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, Guerin,” Alex answered.

“Too late?” Michael gave him a soft smile, sharp at the edges.

“I’ve been so selfish. I should have given you the piece, but I was so scared. I was so scared you’d leave and that I’d never get to tell you.” Alex exhaled, letting go.

“Alex-”

“Stay.” Alex nodded, blowing out a long slow breath as his heart started beating again. He shifted his weight, tapping the rubber end of his crutch to the side of Michael’s calf. “Okay? Stay with me.”

Michael took a half step closer and Alex knew the moment they pressed together, ached into the way Michael’s right hand slipped around his waist to tuck under the back of his jacket, under the back of his shirt and settled against skin. He knew the way his jaw fit into the curve of Michael’s palm, eyes slipping shut as he tried to remember to breathe. Alex knew what he wanted before Michael’s lips closed over his.

Alex felt the moment Michael wondered if maybe love was just... _this_.

**

Michael flopped back next to her, hair a tangle and an insufferably pleased smile on his lips. Isobel arched an eyebrow at him to which he replied with a small quirk of his mouth and a shrug. He was not subtle, never had been and now as his gaze tracked where Alex had moved to talk to his brother once they’d shown back up. She was pretty sure the other man would catch fire if Michael didn’t blink.

“Gross.” Isobel groaned, leaning back to lounge with him, elbows dainty on the pile of tires behind her. “You’re so gross.”

“It was important.” He shrugged, smile breaking bright and real as he swung his head and finally his eyes to her. “What’d I miss?”

“Oh, you mean besides the fact that you’ve apparently been building a whole damn spaceship to leave?”

His face stuttered, shuttering and going dim before the smile bolstered false. “So you know about that?”

“I do now.” She sniffed and reached to pluck a leaf out of the mess of his curls, arching an eyebrow at him in complaint. “Jerk. Were you even going to say goodbye?”

Michael rolled his eyes and she could see him reach for his hat in his head, looking around to lean out, arm stretched to pluck it from the top of the toolbox he’d left it on. He settled it, hiding the evidence of what had happened out in the Salvage Yard. “This was never my home, Iz.”

She turned, glaring darkly at him. “Yes, it was. You’re my brother, Michael. I don’t know how many different ways I can say it. You’re not allowed to go risking yourself for some stupid idea that you don’t belong here. With me. With Max.” She sucked her teeth, making sure to pin him with the full force of her ire. She watched him cow slightly before the real smile smoothed over his face.

“You’d miss me.”

“God, you’re an idiot. Of course, I would miss you.” She shook her head and turned back to look at the group around the fire. “You can’t leave me with these people. Look at them. He’s in a fucking Carhartt.”

“Max has-”

“I can only do so much. Max is hopeless. He’s her problem now.” She chucked her chin at where Liz was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Rosa, talking in low hushed tones. They looked like sisters, long glossy dark hair with wide dark eyes and full mouths. They looked like they belonged, a matched set. She found herself watching, intent as she sifted through the confused memories, the bits that were hers, the bits that were his, and the bits that seemed to be new. She could still remember the way Rosa’s mouth felt against her palm, the heat of her breath, of her fear. She frowned darkly, wetting her lips and finding her gaze drifting to where Maria was talking animatedly to the new boy, Davi. He was smiling with his arms draped over Cerin’s shoulders, his chin perched on the top of the small girl’s head. He laughed at something Maria said, ducking his head to press his nose against Cerin’s part as his arms curled her close. 

Isobel’s smile faded and she stared, watching the way Maria simply just watched the teens with warm eyes. She wondered if her hair smelled like that smokey incense like it did in high school. She wondered if the back of her neck was warm, sweet smelling and smooth.

“Tell me about the serum,” she said, voice authoritative as she sat up and glanced back at Rosa when Maria’s eyes found the girl’s across the ring. Kyle was sitting next to her, face serious as he seemed to be explaining something to Hunter as he took his pulse again. She made her decision when her eyes slipped back to where Maria was watching Rosa with worried little frown.

“That’s more Liz-”

“Does it work?” She turned her chin before she turned her eyes, pinning him where he was watching her warily.

“It hasn’t been test-”

“Does it work, Michael?” Isobel didn’t like repeating herself.

“It should.” He frowned at her, concern settling between his brows. “Isobel.”

She smiled at him, bright and cheery as she pushed to her feet, snapping once and pointing in a quick circle at the ground. The world hummed, shifting into the half pastel light as she stared at him. The moment stretched gummy and long between them. “Want to show me where this science bunker is?”

Michael glanced to the right, gaze narrowing on the front of his Airstream and it shoved to the side. A moment later the astro turf peeled back as the seal lock spun and heaved open. “Iz, _stop_.”

She brushed him off, sniffing as she pinned them all with a breath and a thought. It was so easy; she simply suggested that they do not pay attention, suggested they focus on what was important. The group had frozen and then spun into motion again, Michael’s gaze searching for Alex across the fire- open and achingly vulnerable. Liz laughed, pushing to her feet and nodded at Isobel as Maria frowned, watching them both. Isobel was looking over the lip of the shaft, counting the iron rungs tapped into the side of the cement before stepping aside to let Liz pass her. 

Isobel followed Liz down into the warm amber light that flickered on when she reached to flip the switch. The bunker was cool but not cold, insulated from the deepening winter with layers of earth, steel, and cement. She turned in a slow circle, letting her eyes trace over the space Michael had made for himself in the dark. She watched the way the air circulation fluttered a few drawings, the edge of a heavy looking tarp, and then the table in the center of the space took her entire attention as Liz pressed the button to light it. It had neat stacks of autoclavable peg test tube racks. There were at least fifteen sets of thirty labeled and set aside. Liz walked to the closest that was still circulating slowly on a professional grade agitator. There were two microscopes set on opposite sides of the table and hand written notes scattered over every surface.

“I need him back,” Liz said, voice soft and hushed. She sounded heartbroken, eyes pleading as she looked across the table to where Isobel was standing. “Max.”

“So do I,” Isobel answered, nodding around the closest to soothing she could manage. She could feel the anticipation threading electric into her veins. She was terrified, but determined as she smiled at where Liz was loading a syringe, flicking the air bubbles to the top and pressing the plunger to measure a set amount. She braced herself, wetting her lips and pulling at the collar of her shirt. “ _Do it_.”

Liz didn’t hesitate even as someone cried out to stop them. Isobel startled at the sharp prick of it, the thud of it through the spaces in her rib cage. She stared, eyes going wide and breath hitching as Liz blinked and realized what was happening. 

“Isobel!” She wanted to pay attention to them, she really did. She knew they were there, the both of them but she had a plan. 

“ _Be quiet_ ,” she breathed and the intention of it felt heavy on her tongue. She smiled, feeling it press into them, pushing them still where they stood as the bunker went bright- flaring extraordinarily light with the soft glow shining straight from the globes. “Oh.” She exhaled and the bunker fell away. She lifted; she found herself rising up, up through the ground to hover just above the dust in the Salvage Yard. She could feel them, the group, the press of their thoughts and their need. She sighed, pressing them quiet too as she closed her eyes, leaned back, and _reached_ -

Isobel felt herself expand like a shockwave in water, going large, impossible and wild- electric and crackling with her gift. She could feel it like lightning in her veins as she sighed, finding mind after mind and simply changing them. 

It wasn’t hard, not when she was rising high- drunk and wild with this light in her lungs, in her breath, in her veins. She laughed, catching the next wave with a quick flick further, further she reached, spreading herself out across the hundred closest tiny minds. It was like flying, above them all. An aerial view of the town sprawling out in front of her, so small and insignificant she could nearly see the curve of the Earth in the distance. She was so full, swollen with light and lifted up, billowing and beautiful, reaching, grasping further and further until she settled like a wave across the city, unstoppable and relentless as she swept across every somnolent human mind, tiny and malleable. She smiled, beatific. It was a simple flex, like clenching her hands and they stopped- they all simply obeyed.

She understood. This is what Max felt, the bubbling effervescent ease of this greatness. It was their purpose. It was their birthright. This world was _theirs_. 

Isobel Evans was made to _rule_.

“No.” 

Isobel growled, snarling at the sound of the soft clear voice behind her. She glared, lip curled as she rolled her head to stare at where someone dared.

Maria stared at her. “Don’t do this.” The other woman was dressed simply in the same thing she’d been wearing in the real world, fluffy socks, an oversized sweater wrapped around the over large shirt. She looked ridiculous in wild hair and mismatched clothes, her bangles missing and wrists naked. “It’s not why you did this, remember?”

The world was turning because Isobel walked forward. The mountains wouldn’t matter if she wasn’t there. She was above them, beyond, a light to be followed and Maria stepped closer, unafraid. She laughed like the crash of tectonic plates.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Isobel told her, voice a roar like the sea, like the crack of thunder, like-

“You told us to pay attention to what was important.” Maria shrugged, moving in inches, pressing against the endless flow of light and power. “I guess that’s you.” She shook her head. “Surprise.” She frowned and lifted both hands.

“No. You hate me.” 

“Apparently not.” Maria frowned. “This isn’t you. Despite how awful you are. You’re a bitch, not...” Maria coughed a wry laugh and finally reached out, catching the impossible lightness of Isobel in this moment, squeezing her fingers. “You’re petty and shallow, devoted and fierce. You’re a lot of things, Isobel, but you aren’t... _this_.” She smiled, narrowing her eyes and wrinkling her nose as she watched Isobel with an exasperated sigh. “Remember?”

Maria had been watching Rosa across the fire. “You wanted to fix this for me.” She’d been watching her best friend stuck in youth. She’d been watching her best friend with the saddest eyes Isobel had ever seen. She’d been longing to have had her for the last ten years. Maria missed her friend. She needed her friend. “You wanted to fix this for me. I can feel it.” 

And Isobel remembered the feel of the scream that caught behind her palm, the feel of Rosa simply turned _off_ with a thought. She remembered murder. She remembered fire. She remembered that he’d believed he was better than. This is what Noah believed. This wasn’t her.

She’d decided to fix it.

Isobel turned, looking at the stilled city, the sprawl of minds caught together like she’d been gathering them close. She reached in with a desperate push, catching the collective memory and twisted it, shifted it just slightly to the right. _Rosa never died. She was injured in the crash that killed the girls. She’s been away._ It was easy. It should have been difficult. She laughed at the way everyone simply obeyed. She could build nations. She could harness endless power. It was heady, intoxicating and she exhaled light.

“Okay, time to come back down,” Maria sounded far away and Isobel wanted to shrug her off. What did one person matter when she could touch the stars. “Hey, Alien Barbie, you don’t get to run the world,” Maria snapped, throwing the words and Isobel frowned, wanting to swat at her, swat at the idea that this wasn’t her rightful place.

“Come on, Isobel. You’ve had enough. Come back, you’re scaring me,” and the last words, whispered like she was something to be feared snapped her back. She fell, folding up small, pulling at the edges of herself that she’d flung across the sky. She pulled tight and fell, fell for what felt like an eternity in seconds before crashing back into her body with a choking gasp, blood in her mouth and eyes rolling. For Maria, Isobel fell.

Maria had a hand on her face, staring down at her as she seized. “That’s it. Come on back.” She slapped at her cheek, pulling her back to focus. “God, I thought Michael was the reckless one.”

“I scored a 178 on the LSAT,” Isobel told her, voice rasping in a near whisper as she slammed back into the way her body was shaking. “It was a calculated risk.”

“Let them go, now,” Maria told her, glancing at where Liz was frozen with a hand half out. Michael was almost down the steps, half turned toward her. Isobel pouted, wetting her lips and scowling at the taste. Maria tucked the edge of her shirt over her palm, wiping gently as Isobel relented. Liz spun into life, Michael a breath behind her. At the top of the bunker Kyle Valenti was starting to heave himself down, dangling, uncertain, for a moment before getting his feet caught on the metal rungs. “Thank you.” She smiled as everyone started talking at once. 

Isobel smiled back before promptly deciding passing out was better than the noise.

**  
“Are you guys trying to die?” Kyle said simply, his voice cutting across the small space as he hit the ground and strode to stare at where Isobel was slumped on the ground. “Because, it looks like you’re all trying to just fucking kill yourselves.”

“What did you do, Liz?” Michael’s voice was shaking, stretched thin as he stared at Liz in the hazy gold light. She looked between her hand and where he was standing over Isobel’s prone form. 

“I- I don’t...”

“You and I both know this was all Isobel. It’s not the first time she’s done this.” Kyle tapped Michael on the shoulder, moving him bodily out of the way to kneel and get a hand at the hinge of Isobel’s jaw, fingers feeling for the beat of her heart. He shook his wrist, flicking his watch face up and counted with the tick of the second hand. He ignored the chaos behind him, nodding once at the steady pace of her pulse and cupped her head, taking the weight from Maria’s thigh and lifting one eyelid and then the other with a gentle thumb. “I’m going to assume this is another untested cocktail?”

Liz nodded when he met her eyes and Kyle sighed. “Guerin,” he said, voice mild and gentle. “Help me get her out of here.” He turned, holding Michael’s panicked gaze. “ _Guerin_. Can you do it or not?” He nodded again, waiting until Michael nodded with him. “Good. Focus on that, you got that?” 

He was looking around the small space, the cool air tasting stale. There were racks of test tubes on the table in the center of the space. Two chairs sat opposite each other, papers everywhere. He saw the familiar box of data on the floor, lid flung to the side. Maria stayed put, taking Isobel’s head back when Kyle settled it gently against her thigh again. He glanced at her and she gave him a small steady smile.

“Liz,” he barked, startling her out of where she was staring. “Get a blood sample so we can track the effects.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Okay?”

The bunker was silent for a moment, all of them taking a long breath after the chaos of moments before. “Move, people.”

For once, they listened.

**

It was dark by the time Liz pulled herself up out of the hole for the last time. The night stretched deep blue fingers between a smattering of stars. The storm that had been threatening on the horizon for the last week was finally rolling down the mountainside to roar across the plain. It crackled with the threat of thunder, silent as the peaks lit up in the dark. It throbbed, white and then dark again as it strobed over the desert. The Airstream was dark, the windows glittering in the dirt where they’d shattered and scattered three days ago. Alex had taken charge with an easy confidence that she’d been so grateful to follow. 

She focused on perfecting the serum, testing the after effects and tweaking the molecular structure to a tighter enantiomer, folding the molecule neatly like a love note tucked into a book. She was wearing Max’s coat, the bunker growing colder as she worked. She could turn her head and smell him, the soft subtle spice and leather. She wanted to rest, she wanted to rest and lean back against him, feel his nose bump the back of her head before his smile settled into her hair. She wanted to feel the weight of his arms and the weight of his love. She’d stared at where he floated silent in the glow of the pod, lost for a breath in the ache of missing him. 

Max had touched her like she was precious, perfect and delicate under his fingers. He touched her like she was something sacred, something to be savored. He’d kissed her like he could taste the beat of her heart in her breath. He kissed her like the taste was indelible, chasing each kiss with a softer one. He had punctuated her skin with his tongue. He was like free fall, breathless and exhilarating. She’d been falling before she’d known that she could fly.

The wind was icy, cutting at her as she grappled the lid of the bunker closed in the light of her headlights. She’d started the Toyota, letting the engine warm, heating the cabin while she loaded the modified serum into the passenger seat. Liz Ortecho was a scientist first. She knew that the data was there, the hypothesis waiting to be proven. She had the method and the steps to follow. Her instruments were carefully placed, waiting for her.

Max was messy, wild hair and soft eyes that didn’t make sense. He had a crooked smile and a long loping walk that seemed to be all thigh. She wanted to spread her fingers over the denim where it stretched tight just above his knees. She wanted to tip her head back, tip herself onto her toes, and kiss the spot just under his jaw. Liz wanted to feel the prickle of his stubble against her lips as he threaded strong fingers into her hair. Max was a mess, words and emotions, grand gestures and the soft sound of her name in the dark. Max Evans was the quiet fear that settled at the end of her bed. 

Max Evans was the unknown. He was a chance. He was a gamble and Liz had never been one to risk what she’d worked so hard to get.

The drive was by rote, just the circle of light in the dark as the yellow lines ticked by as the scrub brush pulled navy shadows in the dirt. The rain started somewhere just off the highway, the dirt road going slippery as the skies opened and shook the world wet. 

“You remember what you said?” She asked the small slivers of clarity that her wipers smeared across the windshield. “I feel like I’m disappearing until you look at me.”

There were four cars parked in a neat row at the edge of the gully before the mesa dropped off sharply and spilled out to the foothills. “No one says shit like that, Max. It’s ridiculous. You’re ridiculous. No one says things like that because it’s impossible to respond. You know that right? That there’s no way to be loved like that? It’s too much. It’s too much and it’s terrifying.” She sniffed. “You said, and I quote, and then I’m so completely seen.”

He’d kissed over her collarbone and down over the swell of her breast. He’d paused there, eyelashes brushing at where her breath shivered out of her, panting as she tangled her fingers in the heat of his dark hair. He glanced up as he sank lower, watching her up the length of her body as he settled between her thighs. He’d nosed at her once, startling and electric. She’d been shocked at the sweet heat of it, the electric shock of his tongue darting a questioning taste. She’d wanted to open to him. She’d wanted to be seen by him. Max was a mess, but tangled against her, moving in her, everything made perfect sense.

“I’ve never liked that feeling before.” She sighed, gripping the wheel and nodding a few times. “Max.You hopeless romantic. You had better be.” She stopped, wetting her lips and grabbed the serum from the seat and shoved out the door into the rain. It doused her, icy and unstoppable as the lightning scattered shadows into the dark.

Max had stretched into her as she hooked over his leg to push against his calf with the arch of her foot. She’d clawed at him, pulling him closer. She needed him closer. 

She ducked under the small wooden lip that had been reinforced at the entrance of the cave, darting down the twisting passage. She could find him in the dark now, feet sure as she took the right, then forked to the left, the passage curving back on itself and hidden for a moment before it twisted through a small crevice and ended. The cavern yawned open, the soft glow of the pods matched by the golden gleam of the console. Isobel didn’t look up from where she was standing in front of Max’s pod, eyes watching him float silently in the light. Michael sucked his teeth, taking his hat off to set it on the rock ledge.

“You ready?” He asked, eyes earnest as he crossed the space to meet her.

“It’ll work,” she told him. She hid the tremble of her hands in the sleeves of the wet leather jacket.

Liz looked around the cavern, watching where Kyle was shifting from foot to foot, nerves writ large in the way he tugged his hair and kept shaking out his wrists. Behind him was a small bevy of medical gear and a plain white plastic jug of pure acetone. He gave her a small smile and set his jaw. Alex was standing just to the right, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket and eyes determined. Maria pushed up from where she’d been sitting next to Rosa. They’d both been wrapped in blankets and her sister followed, bundling across the space to open the blanket she was wrapped in for a hug. “Thank you,” Liz whispered. Maria collapsed against them both, heads touching in a tight little circle.

“What’s the point of having a bff if you can’t help them resurrect their almost dead long lost love?” Maria’s smile wrinkled her nose as Liz sighed into a small noise of hope and touched their foreheads together. She took what solace she could in the warmth, in her friends. This was her family now. 

“You love him,” Rosa relented. “Time to take the armor off.”

Liz pulled back and shrugged out of Max’s jacket, folding it to lay next to Michael’s hat on the rock ledge. She moved to his pod, setting her hands on the soft curve of it, the way it seemed impossibly still as the lavender light rippled and flowed around her touch. Max Evans was a mess, but she needed him. She needed the way he’d whispered her name like it was the only word he knew. “You touched my lips and I stopped breathing,” she reminded him. She couldn’t feel him, couldn’t feel him under her skin. She couldn’t feel the echo of his love ringing in ripples around her heart. 

All she could feel was her own. She hoped it was enough.

“Did we remember his boots?” Liz Ortecho knew the moment she packed away the woman in love for the scientist. She bundled her into a small box and parsed out the next steps, ready to follow the formula, test the hypothesis and record the results. She handed Kyle the second serum, nodding at him as he moved toward Isobel.

“You sure about this,” Kyle asked as Isobel slipped out of the caramel colored jacket and held her wrist to him.

“Do I have to make yo-”

“No, just need to make sure you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m the only one who knows what this is like, Kyle.” She tilted him an even look and wet her lips. “Do it.”

Liz heard Kyle inhale slowly before he looked at where she was cleaning a small patch of skin at the inside of Michael’s elbow. Michael wasn’t looking at her; he just stared at the pod where Max floated silent, tucked small in the shell. Rosa moved to the console, ready to tap the specific order she’d been taught.

“Okay, Michael,” she warned, voice soft as she glanced over and nodded at Kyle. They moved in tandem. Michael made a soft noise of wonder as Isobel groaned low in her throat. “Rosa, go.” She cleaned the small pricked wound at the inside of Michael’s arm as the ground started to shake, just a low thrum like inaudible bass rolling across water. The pods started to sway, dust kicking up to twirl lazily through the soft glow. Alex moved up, gentle as he stood in front of Michael and whispered his name. Maria was walking to stand in front of Isobel, blanket wrapped around her as she slipped a hand to take one of Isobel’s fingers loose in her grip. Liz nodded and turned, watching Rosa’s hands tap out a sequence in shimmering gold light, the touch sparking a sheen of lavender and violet to shimmer across the delicate lacework surface of the console. “Come on, Max,” she whispered.

The pods swayed, the thrumming causing a slight wobble as they danced in place. Max stayed still, shifting like a compass needle to stay facing her, eyes closed and hands light where they were tucked around his shoulders. “Max. Come on.”

The pod froze and peeled open like a soap bubble going overly delicate before bursting, skin so thin she knew the moment he would tip forward, reaching to catch him as he tumbled from the shell. She’d forgotten the weight of him, struggling for a moment to keep his head in her hands as he unfolded, skin slick and hair smeared to his forehead. He shimmered slightly in the light as the pod reformed behind him. 

“Now.” She didn’t know who’d spoken, just that Michael and Isobel snapped into motion, eyes open as they surged forward, pulled to where Max was sprawled against her. “Come back. Come _back_.”

She felt the moment they touched him, felt the moment it all crackled into motion. The world seemed too full, too much, the air wild and raw. A flashlight exploded and she held on, held on as Michael and Isobel began to glow, lit from within as they screamed, voices blending into a single note of need as the pale glow of the pods was subsumed by the flashing electric heat of their hands. The world pulled taut, the laws of physics and science bending with a scream of family as the storm raged outside. The shatter of thunder a back beat to the way everything seemed to scream, the world ripped sideways until it simply _snapped_. 

A blast of something that tingled electric shocked through her, prickling the hair on her arms to stand on end. It thrummed outward, through the pods, blowing out and across the cavern. It knocked Alex off balance. It billowed the blanket around Maria. It lifted the dust from the ground and pushed it out in a rolling impossible wave of need.

Isobel and Michael managed one more breath before they went limp, strings cut and staggering to the ground. She could hear the soft whined pants behind her, hear the way they’d pushed so hard, so long. She heard Alex whisper Michael’s name, but she was trying to be patient. The cave was dark, the lantern blown in the concussive wave, sparking haphazardly. The console went dull, job done. 

“Come back, Max. Come _back._ ” She exhaled, tasting tears as she breathed his name. “Max. Please.”

The silence stretched in the cave. She could feel the weight of him, the heat under his skin. She thought that maybe, just maybe she could feel him under her heartbeat again. She waited, fingers slipping over his skin, gentle and urgent. She had packed the panic away, packed it away in a little box labeled with the assumption that if Rosa was alive, Max could be alive again too. She’d packed away the fear for so long, hiding from it in a dizzying dash to this, this one moment in the dark. She waited, silent and scared as the dust settled back, the wave of power passed, released out into the world. Liz Ortecho was just a woman in love. She waited. She waited for one breath, two. She’d wait forever if he’d just-

Under her hands, Max took a breath. “Liz?” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

Thirty seven miles away, three levels underground the lights in the compound sparked to life and shattered one by one. The surge swept along the corridors like an unbridled wave, splashing up to the electric monitors, each exploding outward in an unrelenting slide. The darkness followed, quick on the heels of each shower of sparks, drowning as the wave rolled deeper. It passed the open bay where Jesse Mane’s body was still, sealed into a space that went dark, black swallowing the last of him. It pressed deeper, following a stairwell and crashing across a wide storage bay. The lights flickered on, surged bright and shattered. Row after row, telescoping into the dark. It stretched endlessly, lighting the rows of shelves with a quick strobe before going dark. 

The darkness settled slow. It settled like silence until the shelves began to glow, a slow burgeoning brightness that lit the space a pale silver, soft as pod after pod went white, coming alive to the surge that had searched, searched and found them deep underground in the dark. 

The pods went soft, a patient waiting glow until a hand slapped against the shell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys. You made it. I made it. I cannot express how grateful I am that you came with me on this journey.
> 
> This is dedicated to my tireless network of friends I've made along the way. The people who held my hand and held me up when I thought I couldn't make it. This is for my beta who managed to keep me focused.
> 
> And mostly, this is for the Little One who haunted my inbox and simply asked me to fix it. And for once? I could.

**Author's Note:**

> come flail with me   
> Come flail with me 


End file.
